One by Willie

In a special, icon-on-icon birthday tribute, 13-time Grammy winner and longtime Willie friend, fan, and collaborator Bonnie Raitt talks about their sublime 1993 duet, “Getting Over You.” It was a cornerstone of one of the most important albums of Willie’s career, Across the Borderline, and produced by the brilliant Don Was—who also produced Bonnie’s own masterpieces Nick of Time and Luck of the Draw. Bonnie gets into all that, likening Willie in the studio to both the Cheshire Cat and Yoda, before talking about covering “Night Life” with B.B. King at Willie’s legendary 60th birthday concert, why she thinks Willie is the most unique guitar player alive, and then sending him the most gracious birthday wish you will hear all year.

Transcribed - Published: 29 April 2025

Brilliant indie rock-pop-and-folk singer-songwriter Conor Oberst, of Bright Eyes and Monsters of Folk fame, talks about another of Willie’s famous Pamper Demos, “Undo the Right.” It was one of Willie’s earliest efforts for the Pamper Publishing Company, a co-write with Hank Cochran, the legendary songwriter who first championed him when he moved to Nashville. That gets Conor thinking about the craft of songwriting, about how sneaking contradictory or counterintuitive ideas into songs helps them to better reflect what he calls the "big mess” of real life, and how nobody writes a bridge like Willie does…before we listen to another old Willie song, “The Storm Has Just Begun,” which was the B-side to his first single in 1959—and that Willie wrote when he was just twelve years old.

Transcribed - Published: 26 March 2025

Revered photographer Mark Seliger—who’s taken iconic images of everyone from Barack Obama and the Dali Lama to Kurt Cobain and Ice T—talks about the song that he says has informed almost every photo he’s taken of his friend Willie Nelson, 1978’s “Stardust.” Mark was a college freshman on a long, lonely road trip the first time he heard it, and he describes channeling that experience, plus the work of Edward Curtis, into his first great Willie portrait nearly twenty years later. From there he gets into what you learn about Willie from a close look at Trigger, plus the wonders of playing a Fourth of July Picnic with his own country band, Rusty Truck.

Transcribed - Published: 19 March 2025

Larry Gatlin, a card-carrying member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (“All the Gold in California,” “Broken Lady,” etc.), focuses on “She’s Not for You,” off Willie’s game-changing 1973 album, Shotgun Willie. Well-read Willie nerds know that record, cut in New York for Atlantic Records, was the closest Willie had yet come to creative control of a project, and Larry, who played guitar and sang backup in the sessions, describes just how different that was from the Nashville process in which Willie'd been struggling. But he also explains another, lesser-known key to the record’s success…before sharing memories of the legendary picking parties Willie co-hosted with University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal, and the joy of just being around longtime Willie consort Roger Miller.

Transcribed - Published: 12 March 2025

Black Puma Adrian Quesada, the Austin-based guitarist, producer, and songwriter who also co-founded Grammy-winning Latin funk orchestra Grupo Fantasma, looks at the centerpiece of Willie’s 1998 album Teatro, “I Never Cared for You.” That album, produced in a small movie house by Daniel Lanois as a showcase for Willie’s guitar-picking over a bouncing bedrock of Afro-Cuban rhythms, is considered a masterpiece by Willie World insiders. A close listen by Adrian leaves him marveling at the surreal world Lanois created for the recording…but also leads to a deep examination of the Latin elements in the music of one of country’s greatest heroes—and why that makes Willie “the most American thing we have.”

Transcribed - Published: 5 March 2025

New Yorker music critic Amanda Petrusich looks at the other big hit off Willie and Merle Haggard’s classic 1983 Pancho & Lefty album, “Reasons to Quit.” It’s a classic Haggard drinking song, but a little more pensive than most, and Amanda reframes it—and really, all of Pancho & Lefty—as an example of what she calls the Outlaw’s Conundrum, i.e. what’s an old rebel to do when the time comes to settle down? Then we get into the all-star band that backed Willie and Merle on the record and, in a particularly insightful interlude, the specific ways sad songs can help people when life feels like too much to bear.

Transcribed - Published: 26 February 2025

Before he received wide acclaim as Bob Dylan’s lead guitarist in the early 2000s, Charlie Sexton was a fixture of the Austin music scene going back almost as far as Willie himself, having first performed publicly in 1978, as a self-taught, nine-year-old, guitar prodigy invited onstage at the famous Continental Club. This week, Charlie the producer/bandleader/singer-songwriter nerds all the way out on one of Willie’s extra-obscure, early-60’s Pamper Demos, “I Let My Mind Wander,” a recording he considers a perfect example of real-deal, steel-driven, jukebox country music. But then, because we were recording our conversation in one of Willie’s old haunts, Arlyn Studios, he gets into his own experiences as a precocious preteen dragging his guitar through Willie World, before giving a little insight into how much his old boss, Bob Dylan, loves Willie Nelson.

Transcribed - Published: 19 February 2025

John Mellencamp, one of Willie’s fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members and a Farm Aid co-founder, has been a fan since first hearing “Funny How Time Slips Away” as a pre-teen in Seymour, Indiana. That song was one of Willie’s first contributions to the American Songbook, a reliable hit for other artists for nearly 15 years before Willie finally became a star, and it gets Mellencamp musing on parallels between early Willie and Bob Dylan—and how he later followed Willie’s lead in his own bitter battles with record industry overlords. From there we get into the unlikely origin of Farm Aid, the ongoing fight for the American farmer, and why Mellencamp thinks Willie deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Transcribed - Published: 12 February 2025

CNN political analyst Paul Begala, a former White House chief strategist for Bill Clinton and lifelong Willie nerd, talks about “Heartland, a song Willie co-wrote and recorded with Bob Dylan for his 1993 masterpiece, Across the Borderline. “Heartland” was inspired by the American farm crisis of the mid-eighties, a tragedy Begala saw first-hand as a young speechwriter working his first presidential campaign in 1987, and one that he still has a hard time discussing. But it’s in those memories—and a gracious turn Willie did for his mom—that Begala settled on what he considers the singer’s true gift, empathy. With cameo appearances by Nelson Mandela, Elie Weisel, and Parliament-Funkadelic.

Transcribed - Published: 5 February 2025

One of the most mind-blowing guitarists on earth, Billy Strings, talks about an all-time great Willie and Trigger workout, “Stay a Little Longer,” off the 1978 double-album Willie and Family Live. The song’s an old Bob Wills standard that Willie updated, made his own, and plays here at a careening, 90-mph pace that Billy says blazes like bluegrass—before adding that he hears in it a hallmark of Willie’s picking: integrity in every note. From there he describes a magical day cutting “California Sober” at Pedernales with Willie, the high price of playing poker with him afterward, and what it was like to carry Jody Payne’s old Martin guitar onstage at Willie’s 90th birthday shows.

Transcribed - Published: 29 January 2025

The reigning queen of country music, Miranda Lambert, talks about one of the all-time great Outlaw anthems, Willie and Waylon’s Grammy-winning, #1 hit from 1978, “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys.” It’s a song Miranda can’t remember ever not knowing, one she suspects she first heard her dad played on the front porch, before she could even walk. The memory of those family get-togethers gets her thinking about the vital role pickin’ parties have played not just in her own life, but in country music history, the first song that ever made her cry, and the debt that every country artist owes to her hero, Willie Nelson.

Transcribed - Published: 22 January 2025

Music writer John Spong talks each week to one notable Willie fan about one Willie song they love, then runs down the kinds of rabbit holes that open up when the subject is Willie Nelson. Starting January 22, ten new episodes featuring Miranda Lambert, John Mellencamp, Billy Strings, Black Puma Adrian Quesada, New Yorker music critic Amanda Petrusich, and so on…each giving a uniquely personal take on the life and art of a genuine American folk hero.

Transcribed - Published: 15 January 2025

Introducing the latest podcast from Texas Monthly, "Viva Tejano.” Latin music is ascending in the U.S., and, in some surprising ways, much of the story behind the trend begins in Texas. On Viva Tejano, host J.B. Sauceda talks with legendary tejano artists and well-known tejano music fans about how the music has shaped their lives. It’s a nostalgic journey and a close look at the influences behind many of today’s biggest acts in música Mexicana. Audio subscribers to Texas Monthly can listen to episodes one week early, and get access to exclusive bonus material. Visit texasmonthly.com/audio to learn more.

Transcribed - Published: 6 November 2024

Introducing the latest podcast from Texas Monthly, "Viva Tejano.” Latin music is ascending in the U.S., and, in some surprising ways, much of the story behind the trend begins in Texas. On Viva Tejano, host J.B. Sauceda talks with legendary tejano artists and well-known tejano music fans about how the music has shaped their lives. It’s a nostalgic journey and a close look at the influences behind many of today’s biggest acts in música Mexicana. Audio subscribers to Texas Monthly can listen to episodes one week early, and get access to exclusive bonus material. Visit texasmonthly.com/audio to learn more.

Transcribed - Published: 6 November 2024

This week, one of America’s greatest living poets, singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, celebrates the easy beauty of one of Willie’s most cherished songs, “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” From there she’ll get into how inspiring it was to first see Willie do his thing when she moved to Austin in 1974; how weird it was, when she moved back to Austin in the 80s, to live in a run-down apartment complex-cum-artist’s colony that Willie owned on South Congress—sharing it with the old boyfriend, Clyde Woodward, she would immortalize in her song, “Lake Charles”—and what an absolute honor it was, twenty years later, to cut a duet with Willie on another of her songs, “Overtime.”

Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2024

This week, one of America’s greatest living poets, singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, celebrates the easy beauty of one of Willie’s most cherished songs, “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” From there she’ll get into how inspiring it was to first see Willie do his thing when she moved to Austin in 1974; how weird it was, when she moved back to Austin in the 80s, to live in a run-down apartment complex-cum-artist’s colony that Willie owned on South Congress—sharing it with the old boyfriend, Clyde Woodward, she would immortalize in her song, “Lake Charles”—and what an absolute honor it was, twenty years later, to cut a duet with Willie on another of her songs, “Overtime.”

Transcribed - Published: 3 April 2024

This week, Willie’s first-born, daughter Lana Nelson, talks about one of the songs her dad used to sing to her at bedtime, “Red Headed Stranger,” calling his breakthrough 1975 recording of it one of the first times an album of his sounded the way he did at home. From there she’ll walk us through some wonderful family history...like dodging rent-hungry landlords during the lean years, her dad’s hog farm/commune outside Nashville through the RCA years, and the session with Merle Haggard that produced “Pancho and Lefty.”

Transcribed - Published: 27 March 2024

This week, Willie’s first-born, daughter Lana Nelson, talks about one of the songs her dad used to sing to her at bedtime, “Red Headed Stranger,” calling his breakthrough 1975 recording of it one of the first times an album of his sounded the way he did at home. From there she’ll walk us through some wonderful family history...like dodging rent-hungry landlords during the lean years, her dad’s hog farm/commune outside Nashville through the RCA years, and the session with Merle Haggard that produced “Pancho and Lefty.”

Transcribed - Published: 27 March 2024

This week, one of the brightest stars of the Texas Country/Red Dirt scene, singer-songwriter Wade Bowen, examines “Me and Paul,” Willie’s 1971 chronicle of the road-warrior life he was sharing with his erstwhile partner in crime, drummer Paul English. It’s a perfect song for Wade to get into, partly because, as he rightly points out, Willie was a progenitor of the circuit where he makes his living now, but also because of the setting for our visit: Wade zoomed in from his tour bus, which was broken down somewhere in Iowa on his way to a gig.

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2024

This week, one of the brightest stars of the Texas Country/Red Dirt scene, singer-songwriter Wade Bowen, examines “Me and Paul,” Willie’s 1971 chronicle of the road-warrior life he was sharing with his erstwhile partner in crime, drummer Paul English. It’s a perfect song for Wade to get into, partly because, as he rightly points out, Willie was a progenitor of the circuit where he makes his living now, but also because of the setting for our visit: Wade zoomed in from his tour bus, which was broken down somewhere in Iowa on his way to a gig.

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2024

This week, six-time Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, and virtuoso guitarist John Leventhal—see Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs; his wife, Rosanne Cash’s The River and the Thread—discusses the song that first hipped him to the genius of Willie, 1975’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” He describes it with a producer’s ultimate praise, calling it a record that seems to exist outside of any era, before getting into his session work with the Hall of Fame band that backed Willie on 1993’s Across the Borderline, plus the reasons he thinks of Willie as a cross between legendary Nashville guitarist Grady Martin and Pablo Picasso...and his late father-in-law, Johnny Cash, as a cross between Elvis and Abe Lincoln.

Transcribed - Published: 13 March 2024

This week, six-time Grammy-winning producer, songwriter, and virtuoso guitarist John Leventhal—see Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs; his wife, Rosanne Cash’s The River and the Thread—discusses the song that first hipped him to the genius of Willie, 1975’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” He describes it with a producer’s ultimate praise, calling it a record that seems to exist outside of any era, before getting into his session work with the Hall of Fame band that backed Willie on 1993’s Across the Borderline, plus the reasons he thinks of Willie as a cross between legendary Nashville guitarist Grady Martin and Pablo Picasso...and his late father-in-law, Johnny Cash, as a cross between Elvis and Abe Lincoln.

Transcribed - Published: 13 March 2024

This week, one of Willie’s longtime tour mates, Grammy-winning blues singer and guitarist Susan Tedeschi, talks about a deep cut off his 1998 album with Daniel Lanois, Teatro, “Somebody Pick Up My Pieces.” It’s a song she and her husband, slide-guitar hero Derek Trucks, play almost nightly with their group, the Tedeschi Trucks Band, and it gets her thinking aloud on a foundational principle of Willie World: The absolute importance of making music with people you love—with meaty cameo appearances by the Allman Brothers Band, Jessica Simpson, The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and Emmylou Harris...who Susan calls a “Jedi.”

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2024

This week, one of Willie’s longtime tour mates, Grammy-winning blues singer and guitarist Susan Tedeschi, talks about a deep cut off his 1998 album with Daniel Lanois, Teatro, “Somebody Pick Up My Pieces.” It’s a song she and her husband, slide-guitar hero Derek Trucks, play almost nightly with their group, the Tedeschi Trucks Band, and it gets her thinking aloud on a foundational principle of Willie World: The absolute importance of making music with people you love—with meaty cameo appearances by the Allman Brothers Band, Jessica Simpson, The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and Emmylou Harris...who Susan calls a “Jedi.”

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2024

Singer-songwriter Bruce Robison is famous for writing highly intelligent, richly detailed country songs—that happen also to be incredibly sad. (See “Angry All the Time,” by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and “Travelin’ Soldier,” by the Chicks.) This week, he focuses on a track that first taught him how emotionally sophisticated country music can be, “Walkin,’” off Willie’s 1974 masterpiece, Phases and Stages...before describing his own Willie tribute song, “What Would Willie Do,” and the weird reception Willie got in Bruce’s hometown, rural Bandera, Texas, when he moved his band and family there after fleeing Nashville in 1971. (Hint: The hippies and rednecks didn’t start getting along until Willie got to Austin a year later.)

Transcribed - Published: 28 February 2024

Singer-songwriter Bruce Robison is famous for writing highly intelligent, richly detailed country songs—that happen also to be incredibly sad. (See “Angry All the Time,” by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, and “Travelin’ Soldier,” by the Chicks.) This week, he focuses on a track that first taught him how emotionally sophisticated country music can be, “Walkin,’” off Willie’s 1974 masterpiece, Phases and Stages...before describing his own Willie tribute song, “What Would Willie Do,” and the weird reception Willie got in Bruce’s hometown, rural Bandera, Texas, when he moved his band and family there after fleeing Nashville in 1971. (Hint: The hippies and rednecks didn’t start getting along until Willie got to Austin a year later.)

Transcribed - Published: 28 February 2024

This week, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright talks about a Willie hit of recent vintage, 2011’s “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.” That may seem an odd focus song for Larry, a New Yorker staff-writer known for tackling topics like Scientology and the rise of radical Islam, but he’s also a native Texan who’s written whole books on the Texas myth. In that vein, he’s got deep, personal thoughts on how Willie’s most truly subversive move was to wear his hair—in the 70s in Texas!—in long, braided pigtails; the existential quality of watching him and Trigger grow old together; and the weirdly difficult role Larry played in getting a Willie statue erected in downtown Austin.

Transcribed - Published: 21 February 2024

This week, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright talks about a Willie hit of recent vintage, 2011’s “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die.” That may seem an odd focus song for Larry, a New Yorker staff-writer known for tackling topics like Scientology and the rise of radical Islam, but he’s also a native Texan who’s written whole books on the Texas myth. In that vein, he’s got deep, personal thoughts on how Willie’s most truly subversive move was to wear his hair—in the 70s in Texas!—in long, braided pigtails; the existential quality of watching him and Trigger grow old together; and the weirdly difficult role Larry played in getting a Willie statue erected in downtown Austin.

Transcribed - Published: 21 February 2024

Booker T. Jones is one of the true geniuses of American music, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer as a keyboardist, composer, and bandleader (see “Green Onions,” “Soul Man,” “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” etc.), but also as a producer, which is the role he played in the creation of Willie’s 1978 masterpiece, Stardust. It was a highly improbable pairing and production, and on this OBW episode, Booker explains all of it—how he met Willie, how they picked the songs, how they ended up recording in Emmylou Harris’s living room—with a focus on the Hoagy Carmichael classic, “Georgia on My Mind.”

Transcribed - Published: 14 February 2024

Booker T. Jones is one of the true geniuses of American music, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer as a keyboardist, composer, and bandleader (see “Green Onions,” “Soul Man,” “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” etc.), but also as a producer, which is the role he played in the creation of Willie’s 1978 masterpiece, Stardust. It was a highly improbable pairing and production, and on this OBW episode, Booker explains all of it—how he met Willie, how they picked the songs, how they ended up recording in Emmylou Harris’s living room—with a focus on the Hoagy Carmichael classic, “Georgia on My Mind.”

Transcribed - Published: 14 February 2024

In addition to being one the few artists to earn an EGOT—i.e. win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony—Whoopi Goldberg also happens to be a big-time music nerd and monster Willie fan. On this episode she talks about his 1978 recording of “Stardust,” calling it “a love song to a love song” that, when Willie sings it, makes her feel like she’s floating barefoot in the clouds with her late mom and brother. From there she’ll describe growing up a musical omnivore in NYC (see Waylon and Willie...but also Anthony Newley, Glen Campbell, and the Four Tops), the origins of country music, and the night she shared a stage with Willie, Leon Russell, and Ray Charles.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2024

In addition to being one the few artists to earn an EGOT—i.e. win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony—Whoopi Goldberg also happens to be a big-time music nerd and monster Willie fan. On this episode she talks about his 1978 recording of “Stardust,” calling it “a love song to a love song” that, when Willie sings it, makes her feel like she’s floating barefoot in the clouds with her late mom and brother. From there she’ll describe growing up a musical omnivore in NYC (see Waylon and Willie...but also Anthony Newley, Glen Campbell, and the Four Tops), the origins of country music, and the night she shared a stage with Willie, Leon Russell, and Ray Charles.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2024

This week, Nick Offerman—noted actor, humorist, author, woodworker, canoe paddler, and agrarian philosopher—talks about Willie’s 1968 song, “Buddy.” It’s likely an obscure title even to real-deal Willie nerds, but not to devoted fans of Nick’s old show “Parks and Recreation,” who should recall it as Ron Swanson’s favorite song. Nick’s going to explain why “Buddy” was chosen for a key moment in what he calls the show’s most important episode, and then he’ll describe the magic of his first Willie concert, the vital work of Farm Aid, and why he considers Willie Nelson one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.

Transcribed - Published: 31 January 2024

This week, Nick Offerman—noted actor, humorist, author, woodworker, canoe paddler, and agrarian philosopher—talks about Willie’s 1968 song, “Buddy.” It’s likely an obscure title even to real-deal Willie nerds, but not to devoted fans of Nick’s old show “Parks and Recreation,” who should recall it as Ron Swanson’s favorite song. Nick’s going to explain why “Buddy” was chosen for a key moment in what he calls the show’s most important episode, and then he’ll describe the magic of his first Willie concert, the vital work of Farm Aid, and why he considers Willie Nelson one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.

Transcribed - Published: 31 January 2024

This week, Nashville super-producer Dave Cobb, whose work with some of the true artists in  modern country music—Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlisle, Jason Isbell—has earned him nine Grammys, talks about “Time of the Preacher.” It’s the overture/aria to Willie’s classic Red Headed Stranger, an album that Dave calls a beautiful, barren landscape, and it gets him thinking about Pink Floyd, the real definition of “outlaw,” and the most important instrument an artist can take into the studio: A belief in themselves.

Transcribed - Published: 25 August 2023

This week, Nashville super-producer Dave Cobb, whose work with some of the true artists in modern country music—Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlisle, Jason Isbell—has earned him nine Grammys, talks about “Time of the Preacher.” It’s the overture/aria to Willie’s classic Red Headed Stranger, an album that Dave calls a beautiful, barren landscape, and it gets him thinking about Pink Floyd, the real definition of “outlaw,” and the most important instrument an artist can take into the studio: A belief in themselves.

Transcribed - Published: 25 August 2023

On October 16, 1992, just two weeks after famously ripping up a photo of the pope on SNL, Sinead O’Connor was booed off the stage at a Bob Dylan tribute at Madison Square Garden. Willie Nelson was also on the bill that night, and after watching that happen, he invited her to join him in the studio the next day. In this clip from OBW S2E2, producer Don Was gives the story behind the duet they recorded, a cover of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s “Don’t Give Up.”

Transcribed - Published: 1 August 2023

This week, Americana singer-songwriter Waylon Payne talks about Willie’s 1970 cover of Joni Mitchell’s iconic “Both Sides Now.” Waylon, an NPR-darling as an artist now, grew up in Willie World; his mom, Sammi Smith—of “Help Me Make It Through the Night” fame—played package shows with Willie in the ‘70s; and his dad, Jody Payne, was Willie’s lead guitarist for almost forty years. Waylon walks us through all that, describing the way Willie songs were his lullabies as a kid, the incredibly difficult personal trials when he says Willie saved his life, and the time Willie paid his songwriting the highest praise possible. Note: the compliment wasn’t remotely suitable for small ears.

Transcribed - Published: 21 July 2023

This week, Americana singer-songwriter Waylon Payne talks about Willie’s 1970 cover of Joni Mitchell’s iconic “Both Sides Now.” Waylon, an NPR-darling as an artist now, grew up in Willie World; his mom, Sammi Smith—of “Help Me Make It Through the Night” fame—played package shows with Willie in the ‘70s; and his dad, Jody Payne, was Willie’s lead guitarist for almost forty years. Waylon walks us through all that, describing the way Willie songs were his lullabies as a kid, the incredibly difficult personal trials when he says Willie saved his life, and the time Willie paid his songwriting the highest praise possible. Note: the compliment wasn’t remotely suitable for small ears.

Transcribed - Published: 21 July 2023

This week, Foo Fighters lead guitarist and Shred with Shifty podcast host Chris Shiflett discusses one of the original outlaw anthems, Willie and Waylon’s 1976 version of “Good Hearted Woman,” exploring the evolution of the movement and the creation myth behind the song’s recording, before grabbing a guitar and demonstrating what makes Willie an absolute one-of-a-kind guitar player.

Transcribed - Published: 14 July 2023

This week, Foo Fighters lead guitarist and Shred with Shifty podcast host Chris Shiflett discusses one of the original outlaw anthems, Willie and Waylon’s 1976 version of “Good Hearted Woman,” exploring the evolution of the movement and the creation myth behind the song’s recording, before grabbing a guitar and demonstrating what makes Willie an absolute one-of-a-kind guitar player.

Transcribed - Published: 14 July 2023

This week, 8-time Grammy-winner Ray Benson—one of Willie’s best friends since moving his Western Swing band, Asleep at the Wheel, to Austin back in 1973...at Willie’s urging, no less!—talks about a song Willie and the Wheel cut back in 1999, the Bob Wills classic, “Going Away Party.” Wills was, of course, a hero to both Willie and Ray, as was the song’s composer, the great Cindy Walker, who Ray calls one of the single greatest influences on Willie’s own songwriting. From there he’ll describe fifty years of friendship and collaboration with Willie, with cameos by George Gershwin, Floyd Tillman, and Robert Duvall.

Transcribed - Published: 30 June 2023

This week, 8-time Grammy-winner Ray Benson—one of Willie’s best friends since moving his Western Swing band, Asleep at the Wheel, to Austin back in 1973...at Willie’s urging, no less!—talks about a song Willie and the Wheel cut back in 1999, the Bob Wills classic, “Going Away Party.” Wills was, of course, a hero to both Willie and Ray, as was the song’s composer, the great Cindy Walker, who Ray calls one of the single greatest influences on Willie’s own songwriting. From there he’ll describe fifty years of friendship and collaboration with Willie, with cameos by George Gershwin, Floyd Tillman, and Robert Duvall.

Transcribed - Published: 30 June 2023

This week, singer-songwriter and virtuoso fiddle player Amanda Shires talks about the title song to her new album of duets with Willie’s sister, pianist Bobbie Nelson, “Loving You.” It’s the only song Sister Bobbie ever wrote, a solo piano instrumental with a melody that Amanda says is all about love, faith, and family. She also talks about how Bobbie was one of her heroes long before they became friends and made this record, a role model as a trailblazing female in a male-dominated industry, as a musician more generally, as a mom...and just as a person.

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2023

This week, singer-songwriter and virtuoso fiddle player Amanda Shires talks about the title song to her new album of duets with Willie’s sister, pianist Bobbie Nelson, “Loving You.” It’s the only song Sister Bobbie ever wrote, a solo piano instrumental with a melody that Amanda says is all about love, faith, and family. She also talks about how Bobbie was one of her heroes long before they became friends and made this record, a role model as a trailblazing female in a male-dominated industry, as a musician more generally, as a mom...and just as a person.

Transcribed - Published: 23 June 2023

This week, we ring in Father’s Day with Willie’s youngest son, singer-songwriter and visual artist Micah Nelson, who talks about “Still Is Still Moving to Me.” It was the closing track on his dad’s landmark 1993 album Across the Borderline, a high-octane, guitar-heavy anthem that kicked off the Living Legend phase of Willie’s career. Micah describes how much fun it is to play every night as part of the Family Band, before describing the drive to create he inherited from his dad, one of his dad’s favorite Roger Miller stories, and the magic of discovering old Willie records that others have forgotten.

Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2023

This week, we ring in Father’s Day with Willie’s youngest son, singer-songwriter and visual artist Micah Nelson, who talks about “Still Is Still Moving to Me.” It was the closing track on his dad’s landmark 1993 album Across the Borderline, a high-octane, guitar-heavy anthem that kicked off the Living Legend phase of Willie’s career. Micah describes how much fun it is to play every night as part of the Family Band, before describing the drive to create he inherited from his dad, one of his dad’s favorite Roger Miller stories, and the magic of discovering old Willie records that others have forgotten.

Transcribed - Published: 16 June 2023

Dr. Brené Brown is a researcher, storyteller, and best-selling author known for her work on vulnerability, shame, and empathy—though many of her fans just call her “an inspiration.” On this week’s OBW, she talks about Willie’s 1976 cover of “Amazing Grace” and the way her life was completely transformed the first time she heard it...before we move into the song’s history; her lifelong love of Willie; the concepts of faith, grace, and acceptance, more generally; and the most powerful performance of “Amazing Grace” she’s ever heard.

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2023

Dr. Brené Brown is a researcher, storyteller, and best-selling author known for her work on vulnerability, shame, and empathy—though many of her fans just call her “an inspiration.” On this week’s OBW, she talks about Willie’s 1976 cover of “Amazing Grace” and the way her life was completely transformed the first time she heard it...before we move into the song’s history; her lifelong love of Willie; the concepts of faith, grace, and acceptance, more generally; and the most powerful performance of “Amazing Grace” she’s ever heard.

Transcribed - Published: 9 June 2023

This week, one of the greatest, most innovative record producers in history, Daniel Lanois—think U2’s The Joshua Tree, Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, Peter Gabriel’s So—talks about the landmark album he made with Willie, 1998’s Teatro. He’ll start with a deep cut, “I’ve Loved You All Over the World,” but then, being Lanois, he’ll start to float...to Cuban dance clubs, Texas honkytonks, and Mexican movie houses...to art that exists only in shadows...and to the way U2 tries to summon Willie when they write songs.

Transcribed - Published: 2 June 2023