Texas Monthly.

Hey there, I'm John Spong, the Texas Monthly magazine, and this is One by Willie, a podcast in which I talk each week to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they

really love. This week, we talked to Willie's firstborn daughter Lana Nelson about the song

Red-Headed Stranger. Now, of course, the world knows that is the title track to her dad's landmark

album from 1975. Llan is going to talk about how its original version by Arthur Guitar Boogie Smith and his Cracker Jacks

became one of her favorite songs as a little girl in the late 50s when her dad would play it on the radio as a DJ.

And then she'll get into how, when he finally got around to cutting it later, it finally sounded just like the way it did

when he played it on his guitar for her at bedtime. From there, she'll get into the way the family

had to dodge rent-hungry landlords during the lean years. Her dad's hog farm outside Nashville

during the RCA years, the session with Merle Haggard that produced poncho and Lefty

and how the phrase,

The Life I Love is Making Music with My Friends,

is so much more than just a line in a song.

So let's do it.

It's hard.

A red-headed stranger from Blue Rock, Montana rode into town one day. So we're talking about red-headed stranger, and can you start by tell a little of your history with the song?

Oh, well, I guess I was probably about three when I first heard the song, and dad was a

disc jockey in Portland, Oregon, and actually the radio station was KVAN, so it was across the river and Vancouver.

And so he had the noon show, and that was back when if we had a phone, we could call in and a secretary would answer and you'd make a request.

So I would call in a request red-headed stranger.

Because that was of all the songs he played, that was my favorite one.

And so it was told a story and it just seemed more interesting to me than those other songs that I was hearing.

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