Patoski has been thorough, conducting more than a hundred interviews and drawing on extensive historical research and an impressive familiarity with the 300-plus albums that form Nelson's oeuvre. Nelson has long seemed the personification of "laid back," but it is his quiet determination and unwavering focus that shine through the pages of this admirable biography…Nelson's story doesn't have the gothic edge of Johnny Cash, haunted by the death, in childhood, of his older brother, or the quest for redemption that Merle Haggard nursed after his days as a young criminal. At times Nelson has threatened to become a punch line (and often embraced the impulse), but he has lived a sprawling, uniquely American life, and it deserves an examination this comprehensive.
—The New York Times
In-depth celebration of the Lone Star music legend. Veteran Texas scribe Patoski (coauthor, Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire, 1993), well-equipped to pen a 75th-birthday look at Nelson's eventful life, begins with a knowing look at his subject's Abbott, Texas, roots. Born in 1933, the product of a quickly broken marriage, Nelson was just a boy when he realized that writing and performing music promised an escape from poverty and cotton picking. After bouncing around Texas as a journeyman musician and DJ, he finally landed in Nashville, where his success as a songwriter (author of Patsy Cline's "Crazy" and Faron Young's "Hello Walls") led to an RCA recording contract. But Nelson, a cardigan-wearing anomaly in a town full of Nudie-suited establishmentarians, found no commercial or creative satisfaction as a worker on producer-executive Chet Atkins's "countrypolitan" assembly line. Only after he relocated to Austin in 1972 did he find his groove among the wide-open city's cosmic cowboys. Flying the "outlaw country" banner, he morphed into the long-haired, dope-smoking, peripatetically touring Willie universally venerated today. Drawing on interviews with Nelson and his widely extended "family," Patoski pulls together a rich narrative that keenly comprehends Nelson's artistic and geographical perambulations. The author is especially fine in the early going, colorfully recalling Willie's many years on the beer-joint circuit and the cast of sketchy characters who trod those hardwood floors. But Nelson doesn't get any free passes: Patoski dwells in depth on his capriciousness, quick temper, hard-partying lifestyle, infidelities and four tempestuous marriages, as well as hisheadline-making '90s tax case. The result is a warm, honest portrait of a compulsively footloose, restless artist at home in any musical style-country, Western swing, jazz, gospel, standard pop, reggae, even polka-and truly at home only on his tour bus. Patoski's profound understanding of Nelson's life, character and milieu make this the Willie bio to get.
Patoski pulls together a rich narrative that keenly comprehends Nelson's artistic and geographical perambulations. The author is especially fine in the early going, colorfully recalling Willie's many years on the beer-joint circuit and the cast of sketchy characters who trod those hardwood floors. But Nelson doesn't get any free passes: Patoski dwells in depth on his capriciousness, quick temper, hard-partying lifestyle, infidelities and four tempesturous marriages, as well as his headline-making '90s tax case. The result is a warm, honest portrait of a compulsively footloose, restless artist at home in any musical style ... and truly at home only on his tour bus.
Patoski's profound understanding of Nelson's life, character and milieu make this the Willie bio to get.—Kirkus (starred review)
This impressive, entertaining chronicle of Willie Nelson's life is replete with exactly what you'd expect-honky-tonk, long nights on the open road, whiskey, womanizing and weed-but Texas writer Patoski (Stevie Ray Vaughan: Caught in the Crossfire, Texas Mountains) looks beyond country music trappings to find the funny, talented, determined man who became an unlikely icon. ... Patoski conducted over a hundred interviews for this thorough, well-noted "epic," peopling it with "pickers, gypsies, pirates, vagabonds, wanderers and carneys," including fellow performers like Kris Kristofferson, Kinky Friedman and Leona Williams. Writing with an affectionate country twang, Patoski gives his subject the consideration he deserves in a fine, fluid piece of storytelling that any Nelson fan will appreciate.—Publisher's Weekly
An expansive, engrossing, and epic look at the life of a true American icon. Required reading for music fans and scholars. Former Texas Monthly writer Patoski infuses his biography of Willie Nelson with an encyclopedic knowledge of Texas history that deftly illuminates the depth of influence the land and people of Texas had in shaping Nelson. ... The author's deep, intimate knowledge of Texas and informed love of country music add layers of nuance and detail to his portrait of the complex singer.—Library Journal
For a guy who isn't me, Joe Nick Patoski can really write. Willie Nelson: An Epic Life is heartbreaking enough to have been ghostwritten by Hank Williams. It may be the best book ever written about the life of Texas's greatest gift to the world.—Kinky Friedman
Joe Nick Patoski has here conjured a biography that by far transcends its subject, a book whose evocations of time, place, and spirit are as masterful as they are enthralling.—Nick Tosches
A freelance writer with a strong interest in Texas and its music, he seems to have tracked down every song Nelson ever wrote, every engagement he ever played, every recording he ever made, and so far as I can tell he has left out absolutely nothing.—The Washington Post
"Excellent... Seamlessly weaves together the good, the bad and the ugly to form a three-dimensional portrait of the singer.... For Nelson, his hit 1980 single 'On the Road Again' isn't just a silly song he wrote for the movie Honeysuckle Rose—it's literally the story of his life. And Patoski has fleshed it out beautifully.—Rolling Stone
A mind-bogglingly thorough biography,—The Village Voice
Nelson fans will have their blue eyes cryin' in the rain-with joy-over the arrival of such a richly report bio. There are scores of funny firsthand stories in his account of how a ramshackle hillbilly career sparked an unlikely convergence of redneck, hippie, and Hollywood culture.—Entertainment Weekly
Patoski tells wonderful stories, infusing his narrative with rich detail illustrating Willie's artistic development and its roots in his family's pre-Texas years in Arkansas.—Austin-American Stateman
Veteran author and music writer Joe Nick Patoski spent enough time around Nelson and his friends to fill a few dozen chapters of "Willie Nelson: An Epic Life" and still leave us wanting more.—Los Angeles Times
Based on scores of interviews (including with Nelson himself), it's a lively, substantive account, closer to the treatment given a world-historical figure than a laid-back guitar picker. With Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, Patoski has written a fine book worthy of Willie.—Houston Chronicle
For a guy who isn't me, Joe Nick Patoski can really write. Willie Nelson: An Epic Life is heartbreaking enough to have been ghostwritten by Hank Williams. It may be the best book ever written about the life of Texas's greatest gift to the world.
A freelance writer with a strong interest in Texas and its music, he seems to have tracked down every song Nelson ever wrote, every engagement he ever played, every recording he ever made, and so far as I can tell he has left out absolutely nothing.
"Excellent... Seamlessly weaves together the good, the bad and the ugly to form a three-dimensional portrait of the singer.... For Nelson, his hit 1980 single 'On the Road Again' isn't just a silly song he wrote for the movie Honeysuckle Rose--it's literally the story of his life. And Patoski has fleshed it out beautifully.
A mind-bogglingly thorough biography,
Nelson fans will have their blue eyes cryin' in the rain-with joy-over the arrival of such a richly report bio. There are scores of funny firsthand stories in his account of how a ramshackle hillbilly career sparked an unlikely convergence of redneck, hippie, and Hollywood culture.
Patoski tells wonderful stories, infusing his narrative with rich detail illustrating Willie's artistic development and its roots in his family's pre-Texas years in Arkansas.
Veteran author and music writer Joe Nick Patoski spent enough time around Nelson and his friends to fill a few dozen chapters of "Willie Nelson: An Epic Life" and still leave us wanting more.
Based on scores of interviews (including with Nelson himself), it's a lively, substantive account, closer to the treatment given a world-historical figure than a laid-back guitar picker. With Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, Patoski has written a fine book worthy of Willie.
Joe Nick Patoski has here conjured a biography that by far transcends its subject, a book whose evocations of time, place, and spirit are as masterful as they are enthralling.
