Willie: An Autobiography

by Willie Nelson, Bud Shrake

Overview

Willie Nelson is more than just a singer whose albums have captures this country's imagination for more than thirty years: he is the nearest thing we have to the poet laureate of America's heart and the heartland. Told with frankness, warmth and earthy humor, here is Willie's story: his depression ere childhood; his stormy marriages; his will experiences with drugs, booze and women; his long rise to stardom; his musical and personal experiences with Waylon Jennings, Julio Iglesias, Kris Kristopherson, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Frank Sinatra and Linda Ronstadt.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781461661313
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/29/2000
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	242,371
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Born in Abbott, Texas, on April 29, 1933, Willie Nelson is one of the most popular, prolific, and influential songwriters and singers in the history of American music. A Kennedy Center honoree in 1998, he has been inducted into a number of music halls of fame and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. During the past six decades, he has recorded more than one hundred albums, appeared in several films, and written two New York Times bestsellers: Willie: An Autobiography and The Facts of Life and Other Dirty Jokes.

Editorial Reviews

Nelson, self-proclaimed ``outlaw'' of country music, is depicted from many angles in this rambling account of his trajectory into celebrity. Written with freelancer Shrake in salty and sometimes vulgar language, Nelson's reflections on his three wives, children, his country music peers and others in his large, floating entourage reveal a hard-living man. The singer toiled in the fields as a child during the Depression, was left by his teenage parents with grandparents who raised him and his sister in Texas. The experience was pivotal to his career: ``My desire to escape from manual labor started in the cotton fields of my childhood and cannot be overstated.'' Nelson began his road life as ``an itinerant singer and guitar picker'' on trips punctuated with alcohol, drugs and sex as he climbed to eminence in the world of country music. Now ``crossed over,'' popular with national audiences, Nelson notes that he enjoys all the personal perquisites of his success. Among his revelations here, the singer recalls smoking pot on the roof of the White House after entertaining at a Carter state dinner. Photos not seen by PW. BOMC and QPBC alternates; first serial to Texas Monthly and Golf Digest; paperback rights to Pocket Books. (October)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Refreshingly free of bitterness, pettiness and finger-pointing, Willie: An Autobiography is chock full of delightful, hilarious, self-effacing and often revelatory anecdotes.

Country Music Magazine - Bob Allen

If America only had one voice, it would be Willie's.

Emmylou Harris

WIllie Nelson is a profound, original songwriterin a class with Stephen Foster who contrives to enrich our lives with classics.

Kris Kristofferson

Wille Nelson's impact on American music is indelible. He stands at the crossroads of all the sounds and colors of this country.

Carlon Santana