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 talk 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. Well, Lana's 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.

The 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.

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