Willie Nelson’s ‘Bluegrass’ Underlines His Lifelong Relationship with the Genre

“He was exceedingly cool and easy,” long-time Bill Monroe bassist Mark Hembree remembers about Willie Nelson’s presence at a 1983 recording session where Nelson sang and played with Monroe. “I never had a say in Bill’s mixes, but they had Willie’s guitar way up and as we listened to playback he mentioned it, then turned and asked what I thought,” Hembree wrote in a recent exchange of messages. “I agreed, a little surprised he would ask me.”

People who hear about Willie Nelson’s latest album, Bluegrass, before hearing the music might ask, “Wait, what? What does Willie Nelson have to do with bluegrass music?”

Upon listening, at least two answers come to mind: 1) Much more than you might think. 2) Don’t worry so much.

With tunes by Nelson, one of the best American songwriters, played by notable pickers, the record contains strong music that should sound welcome to fans of Nelson, of bluegrass, and of the field with the loose label, “Americana.”

It’s a given that in more than 60 years of major-label recording, Nelson, 90, has been better known for presenting his own songs, enduring tunes such as “Crazy,” “Hello Walls,” and “On the Road Again,” the last of which is heard here in a new version. But he’s also made his name with notable covers – like “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” “Seven Spanish Angels,” “Blue Skies,” and others – in a welter of styles, including blues, pop standards, and even reggae. Nelson’s core music enfolds ‘40s and ‘50s country, traditional fiddle tunes, four-square gospel, ragtime, some swing flavorings, and definitely a heap of blues. The mix also includes more contemporary pop. Subtract some of that last bit of material, throw in some lonesome mountain banjo and ballads, and you’ll find, in different proportions, foundational bluegrass as designed by chief architects like Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs.

Legacy Records, the Sony division putting out Nelson’s Bluegrass disc, says the style “was given a name by Kentucky songwriter/performer/recording artist Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, whose post-war recordings profoundly influenced Willie’s songwriting sensibilities and the direction of American country music in general.” They go on to say, “Willie chose songs combining the kind of strong melodies, memorable storylines and tight ensemble-interplay found in traditional bluegrass interpretations of the roots (from European melodies to African rhythms) of American folk songs.”

And it’s pretty much on target. But what else speaks to Nelson’s involvement with bluegrass?

Let’s return to the early ‘70s, when he famously abandoned a Nashville scene where he had achieved songwriting fame and a recording career. But Music Row had flagged in creativity and opportunity, he and others thought. And yes, at the end of 1969, his house had burned down. By 1972, Nelson’s persona was changing as his new approach revisited his Texas roots. The year saw new-breed stars like Kris Kristofferson showing up at the first Dripping Springs Reunion, a Texas country music festival. The show, which was to morph int0 a string of outdoor throwdowns known as Willie’s Fourth of July Picnic, presented a bluegrass contingent led by Monroe, with foundational figures Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt leading their post-breakup bands, as
well as additional notables including Jimmy Martin.

Jo Walker, executive director of the Country Music Association, told the Austin-American Statesman that the trade group was delighted to hear about the Dripping Springs Reunion. “So many of the rock festivals and similar events have reflected so unfavorably on the music industry that we are particularly happy that your reunion will be a Country Music show.” But with Nelson embracing a new, youth-driven fan base and a long-haired, bandana-ed look, what did country music even mean?

There was a growing correlation, it seemed, between the increased popularity of bluegrass and the emergent outlaw (read: long hair, free-thinking, whiskey-drinking, dope smoking, etc.) movement in country music, led by Nelson and Waylon Jennings. Its bluegrass surge was sparked in part by the Earl Scruggs Revue’s broad acceptance in non-traditional venues like college campuses and hot sales for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken. Back in Nashville, in 1973, wider acceptance of bluegrass also meant that Monroe, his former Blue Grass Boy Flatt, the brilliant wildman Jimmy Martin, and the great brother team of Jim & Jesse McReynolds would join Nelson amid the crowd of stars at CMA’s second annual Fan Fair celebration.

In 1974, both Scruggs and Monroe, as well as Grand Ole Opry stars Ernest Tubb, Jeanne Pruitt, and Roy Acuff appeared on stage singing with another wildman, country-blues rocker Leon Russell. That’s documented in a photograph of this period, likely from a Willie’s Picnic. Quite a lineup.

A version of the picture found on the web says the shot is from A Poem is a Naked Person, a documentary on Russell by esteemed filmmaker Les Blank shot between 1972 and 1974, but not released until 2015. Nelson appears in the movie to sing “Good Hearted Woman” – also on this new album – playing guitar bass runs that would work fine in bluegrass. He also backs up fiddler Mary Egan, of the Austin “progressive-country” band Greezy Wheels, on an energetic version of the bluegrass-country perennial “Orange Blossom Special.”

In 1974, Nelson went to work in the soul-music capital of Muscle Shoal, Alabama, to record a milestone disc on his road to making records his own way. The album, Phases and Stages, which won over both fans and critics, contains prominent five-string played Scruggs-style on the hit “Bloody Mary Morning,” which also returns on Bluegrass.

The 1983 Bill Monroe session referenced above came after a last minute February 22 phone call from Nelson to let Monroe know he was available to appear on the in-progress Bill Monroe and Friends album for MCA Records. That’s according to a passage in the indispensable book, The Music of Bill Monroe, by bluegrass scholars Neil Rosenberg and Charles Wolfe.

“[Engineer, Vic) Gabany recalls that on February, 22, 1983, Monroe called the studio and asked if it was free that afternoon,” Rosenberg and Wolfe write. “Willie Nelson was in town, and he wanted to rush in and cut the duet with him. Fortunately, it was. Moreover, the Blue Grass Boys were all available, and Haynes was able to round up studio musicians Charlie Collins and Buddy Spicher.”

Monroe’s original tune with Nelson, “The Sunset Trail,” shows the impact of another style, cowboy music, that both men favored. Nelson reaches into his upper range to sing below Monroe, who’s going way up there, as was his wont. “It’s a thrill of my life to be here with you,” Monroe says as he and Nelson exchange praise in the track’s introduction.

In 1990, Monroe accepted Nelson’s invitation to perform at the April 7 Farm Aid IV concert in Indianapolis. “We’re glad to be here with Willie Nelson!” he said to kick off a set marked by powerful singing, crisp mandolin picking, and a little crowd-pleasing buck dancing. The show placed Monroe, 79, in a lineup that included stars such as Elton John and Lou Reid. The Indianapolis Star estimated the crowd at 45,000.

During Monroe’s last years — he died in 1996 — he often spoke to Nelson on the phone, according to a person who didn’t want to be identified, but often spent time at Monroe’s home on the farm outside Nashville during that period. “He valued their friendship immensely,” the person said.

Bluegrass‘s 12 songs contain several Nelson compositions that became standards of his repertoire, along with less familiar tunes that also fit in the recording approach overseen by Music Row’s Buddy Cannon. A songwriter and producer, Cannon is known for delivering big songs, like “Set ‘Em Up Joe” for Vern Gosdin, and chart hits for more recent mainstream acts such as Kenny Chesney, John Michael Montgomery, and Reba McEntire. A frequent Nelson collaborator, Cannon assembled a list of Nashville co-conspirators: Union Station members Barry Bales, on bass, and Ron Block, on banjo; former Union Station member and current rising star Dan Tyminski on mandolin; fiddler Aubrey Haynie; Dobro man Rob Ickes; Seth Taylor also on mandolin; as well as harmonica player Mickey Raphael, who’s worked for decades in Nelson’s band.

The music mostly doesn’t come off as hard-core bluegrass in the mode of, say, the Stanley Brothers. But it leans on the elements that Nelson has in common with the style — lonesome melodies, classic country, swing and blues.

The mournful “You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago,” from 1964, reflects the straight-country songwriting to which Nelson and others brought a terse, modern beauty in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. It was a time when bluegrass enjoyed a closer co-existence with mainstream country, as opposed to straining against the tight format borders that limit today’s music business. Among the many artists who crossed back and forth freely were guitarist-songwriter, Carl Butler, fiddler Tommy Jackson, and Cajun star Doug Kershaw. They all worked with Monroe.

A new version of “Sad Songs and Waltzes” mourns in tones not too different from Monroe favorites ranging from “Kentucky Waltz” to “Sitting Alone in the Moonlight.” The song also recalls the 3/4 time Lone Star tunes that Nelson might have heard at the Texas Fiddlers Contest and Reunion.

That show got going in 1934 in Athens, Texas, just one year before Nelson arrived on the scene in Abbott, less than 90 miles away.

The fiddle contests that influenced so much of Texas music beginning in the 19th century, had parallels in the 18th century Southeast, where contests featured both the fiddle and the banjo, with its African roots. This music went around, and it still comes around.

The sock-rhythm backing of “Ain’t No Love Around” recalls early Blue Grass Boys recordings such as “Heavy Traffic Ahead,” recorded September 16, 1946, and featuring Earl Scruggs’ first recorded banjo solo. Elsewhere, the laidback favorite, “On the Road Again,” gets a more intense reading from Nelson, with some vocal and instrumental improvisation to spice it up. The mystical “Still is Still Moving to Me” leaves plenty of room for pickers to range far and wide on banjo, mandolin, fiddle and Dobro.

“You give the appearance of one widely traveled,” Nelson sings in “Yesterday’s Wine.” He’s singing from a faraway spot in time, in myth, in history. It’s a stance that’s earned a place on bluegrass playlists for more recent songwriters such as Guy Clark, David Olney, and Gillian Welch.

“Bloody Mary Morning,” from Phases and Stages gets the most recent of several revivals from Nelson, who led a jam-grassy version in the 1980 film Honeysuckle Rose and later sang it in a duet with Wynonna Judd. The song’s forthright tale of fighting the blues by having a highball on a plane seems somehow classier than the constant tales of beer and pickups that populate country radio.

In the end it seems clear that for decades, both Willie Nelson and bluegrass music have served, in different ways, as a conscience of country music. Just as the Solemn Old Judge, WSM radio announcer George D. Hay, commanded, they “Keep her close to the ground, boys,” although their paths have diverged, at times.

In any case, this new collection brings Nelson together with bluegrass pickers for music that might even work to serve that same worthy purpose.


Photo Credit: Pamela Springsteen

The Likely Culprits Issue an Arresting Debut

Most likely to succeed? That’s of no interest to the Likely Culprits, an easygoing group of bluegrass cut-ups who just released one of the most entertaining albums out of Nashville this year.

With four of the band’s members bantering inside a forgotten conference room at IBMA, they readily confess that their name derives from an ongoing conversation within the band: Who’s the most likely to end up behind bars? It’s currently a seven-way tie between Brandon Bostic, Ronnie and Garnet Bowman, Melonie Cannon, Ashby Frank, Deanie Richardson, and Austin Ward. The informal happy hour vibe of this conversation lends itself to proceed on a first-name basis.

“We’re all pretty rowdy,” Deanie says. “We’re all a bunch of hillbilly rebels and we were like, ‘Well, one of us probably get arrested eventually.’ And it was just, which one of us was going to go to jail, and who’s the likely culprit?”

Turns out, that unpredictability is the album’s greatest strength. When pulling together its dozen tracks, they wanted to ensure that all five of the band’s vocalists had a chance to sing, and that nobody’s favorite song was left out. The result is something like listening to a stereo with a seven-disc changer, but with a throughline of excellent musicianship and a high caliber of songwriting.

For example, Melonie unearthed album cuts from Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, Brandy Clark, and Matraca Berg, while Ashby reconfigured pop star Gavin DeGraw’s melodious “Where You Are.” After years of singing it at the band’s Station Inn shows, Garnet finally recorded “Tennessee Blues,” a deep cut from Keith Whitley. That tearjerker is immediately followed on the album by Brandon’s version of Dave Matthews Band’s “Gravedigger.” Listening to the self-titled album as a complete body of work, it somehow fits.

There might be a shorter version of how the Likely Culprits all met, but here’s one way to tell the story: Deanie and Melonie have been friends since childhood, and when Melonie married Deanie’s brother, they’d host guitar pulls with their mutual friends. Garnet would come to those parties, forging a bond among all three women that’s lasted 25 years. In the years ahead, she would marry Ronnie, who cultivated his bluegrass reputation in the ‘90s with the Lonesome River Band and as a solo artist. He also produced Melonie’s solo albums with her father, Buddy Cannon.

Meanwhile, Ashby met Garnet and Melonie when he was playing in Ronnie’s band. Later on, when Deanie and Ashby crossed paths a party, they recognized that they’d found kindred spirits in each other. Then, as happens in Nashville, they had an idea to form a band, admittedly with no real intentions of taking it on the road. Instead, the priority would be simply making good music. So, together they rounded up Melonie and Garnet, while Ashby recruited two of his friends, Brandon and Austin. And just as the band was hitting its stride, Ashby took a temporary job as a musician on a cruise ship.

“We were having so much fun, it was like, man, we don’t want to stop,’” Garnet recalls. That’s when Deanie asked Ronnie to take Ashby’s spot, not sure if he’d even want to.

Ronnie explains, “Not that I don’t enjoy being in the band now, but I enjoyed not being in the band back then, because I could actually go to a place where I wasn’t expected to play, and I could see these guys play. I mean, I loved them. And by the time Ashby left, I knew all the songs.”

“I knew he was having fun coming and hanging out, drinking a few beers without the pressure of getting up there,” Deanie says. “But he said he would do it and then it just felt amazing. It felt like it should. He’s one of my heroes and I love him to pieces. Just to get him on stage with us was a big dream of ours. So I’m honored he agreed to do it. Ashby eventually came back from the boat and we thought, ‘Well, let’s throw everybody in there.’ And we did. We played a few shows and said, ‘Let’s do a record, why not?’ So here we are with the record.”

So, what makes the Lonely Culprits click anyway? To borrow a title from the album, “Everybody’s Got Something They’re Good At.” Deanie is an exceptional fiddler, while Melonie and Garnet possess warm, instantly identifiable voices. Ronnie sings and plays guitar, and also serves as co-producer (with Buddy Cannon). Brandon provides vocal, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar, and Ashby sings and plays mandolin. Austin keeps the Likely Culprits moving along on upright bass.

Though it sounds like a long-lost Harlan Howard composition, “Everybody’s Got Something They’re Good At” happens to be a Ronnie Bowman/Dale Dodson original, with Garnet singing lead. (Lee Ann Womack recorded it first but her version never came out. Alison Krauss plays fiddle on this version.)

Just after that throwback country tune, Ronnie sings another of his compositions, “Won’t Do That No More,” with such poignancy that it’s no surprise at all that he’s won multiple IBMA male vocalist awards. He’s also an accomplished songwriter who has placed major hits with Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, and Chris Stapleton.

It’s worth mentioning, too, that Deanie earned an IBMA award this year as a member of Sister Sadie. She’s also toured, along with Brandon, in Patty Loveless’ band. Asked what it feels like to have a lead vocal that keeps changing, she immediately replies, “Oh my gosh, I love it because with Sister Sadie it’s bluegrass. With Patty Loveless, it’s country. But with these guys, it’s all of it.”

That bond has only strengthened since the band’s first show at Station Inn in 2012. It remains a special spot for the band, who listened to the album in its entirety for the first time over the club’s sound system. (Yes, they rang the bell.) They’ll also play an album release show there on November 15.

Thinking back to those days, Brandon recalls, “I moved to town and I didn’t know a single person. I took a job playing in a bluegrass band and moved up on a whim. I thought, ‘I’ve got to get out of the house, I’ve got to meet some people.’ So I started hanging out at the Station Inn and I found a group of people that are my family now. We’re all pretty much on the same page and we’re like-minded with music and what we like and what we don’t like. Playing with them, it’s like coming home all the time.”

One of the band’s biggest champions is Jamey Johnson, the country singer-songwriter who made it his mission to get the Likely Culprits’ new album into the world. He’s also invited them to open a series of shows this week in the Southeast, part of his ongoing effort to support female artists in country music.

While Jamey’s fans are devoted to his singular approach to songwriting, it’s just as likely that they’ll appreciate the perspective from these seven musicians, too. Because Melonie is already a familiar presence at his shows as a harmony vocalist – and because Jamey comes to all the band’s shows — there’s a certain comfort zone already in place for the Likely Culprits, one that doesn’t involve prison guards or enforced curfew.

“This is us sitting in a living room with somebody saying, ‘Ronnie, pick a song,” Deanie says. “Ronnie might pick one, and Garnet might pick ‘Tennessee Blues,’ and Brandon might pick ‘Gravedigger.’ It’s what we do, man. It’s great. I love these guys. I’d go all over the world with them.”

“I would too,” says Brandon, says as Ronnie chimes in with a “Yeah.”

“Same here,” Garnet concludes. “We all feel the same way.”


Photo courtesy of the artist

LISTEN: Willie Nelson, “My Favorite Picture of You”

As one of country music’s greatest interpreters, Willie Nelson has put his indelible stamp on Guy Clark’s late-career masterpiece, “My Favorite Picture of You.” It is a stunning centerpiece of Nelson’s latest project, Ride Me Back Home.

“What I remember most about recording the song was the reverence and respect with which all the musicians showed the lyrics and melody as we were recording it,” says producer Buddy Cannon. “I chose to present this song to Willie because, from the moment Guy Clark sang it for me at his home one morning a few years ago, I have not been able to get the song and the photograph the song was written about out of my head. As Guy was getting ready to sing the song for me he reached behind him and took the photograph of his wife off the wall and told me the story of where the song came from. The song is timeless, just like Willie Nelson is timeless. A perfect marriage of singer and song.”

In the exclusive video below, Nelson shares his own thoughts on Guy Clark and “My Favorite Picture of You.”


Photo credit: Pamela Springsteen
Video courtesy of Sony Music Entertainment

Willie Nelson, ‘Still Not Dead’

Death: it’s no laughing matter. There’s nothing really funny about staring down the end of things, and most of us spend our entire lives — as long as we’re lucky to have them — thinking of clever ways to avoid the inevitable fact that, yeah, this wild ride is all going to end somewhere. Very few of us, however, have to be confronted with news of our own mortality on a regular basis: Our own obituaries are the one piece of journalism that none of us ever really expects to read, unless you believe in heaven and that God gets your local paper. Or, you’re Willie Nelson, and the media has obsessively reported on the fact that you may or may not be currently breathing since your hair first went gray.

But Nelson is breathing — and inhaling — as boldly as ever on God’s Problem Child, his newest LP, and he’s “Still Not Dead,” as he proclaims on a song written with his producer Buddy Cannon. Sonically, it’s like a bookend to his classic “On the Road Again,” buoyant and swinging: He’s still on the road to somewhere and he’s just as surprised as anyone that he’s alive and kicking. But shouldn’t we all be? Waking up in the morning is never a given; it’s a gift, and Nelson knows it. “Don’t bury me, I’ve got a show to play,” he sings, playing licks on his beloved guitar that bloom with both youthful vitality and aged wisdom. Nelson doesn’t value life because death is now tangible. He values life because he doesn’t live like it is. Thankfully for us, he plays music like it, too.