{"id":10084,"date":"2013-06-18T01:06:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T08:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=10084"},"modified":"2013-06-18T01:06:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T08:06:00","slug":"the-concept-of-willie-nelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2013\/06\/the-concept-of-willie-nelson\/","title":{"rendered":"THE CONCEPT OF WILLIE NELSON"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10085\" alt=\"Nelson\" src=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Nelson.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"402\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Nelson.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Nelson-223x300.jpg 223w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>THE CONCEPT OF WILLIE NELSON<\/h1>\n<p>Confession: Something was missing in my recent bit on Willie Nelson\u2019s 80th birthday.<\/p>\n<p>But I only realized it last week during a long walk home crosstown from the Cutting Room, where I and my new two friends had just seen Buster Poindexter (more on that later). During the show\u2019s intermission, Lincoln Foley Schofield, the club\u2019s booker, asked me how I liked the Willie celebration. It hadn\u2019t even been a week, and I\u2019d already forgotten I\u2019d seen him there.<\/p>\n<p>I mentioned my forgetfulness\u2014why, I can\u2019t remember\u2014to my new friends, and then told them what little I could still recall about the Willie party. And then I started rhapsodizing about Willie, how most people love him as everybody\u2019s favorite high-as-a-kite uncle\/grandfather figure\u2014not so much the Red Headed Stranger.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, unless you\u2019re a longtime country music fan, what are the odds you can name a Willie song\u2014let alone album&#8211;besides \u201cTo All The Girls I\u2019ve Loved Before\u201d (which was really just a big collaboration hit with Julio Iglesias) and maybe \u201cBlue Eyes Crying In The Rain\u201d? Who among the non-country names I listed who taped Willie birthday greetings could do it, besides Elvis Costello and Sheryl Crow? Barbra Streisand? Tony Bennett? Ozzy Osbourne? Marky Ramone?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not like Johnny Cash: Everybody knows \u201cI Walk The Line\u201d and \u201cRing Of Fire\u201d and probably \u201cFolsom Prison Blues\u201d and \u201cA Boy Named Sue,\u201d and Cash had a series of acclaimed and hip recordings with Rick Rubin at the end of his life, including, of course, his celebrated cover of Nine Inch Nails\u2019 \u201cHurt,\u201d and the Grammy-winning video accompanying it.<\/p>\n<p>Yet like I noted previously Willie, like Cash, remains a most lovable icon, an institution like Cash and Tony and very few others\u2014their progressive political tendencies notwithstanding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople just love the concept of Willie Nelson!\u201d I told my new friends. \u201cThat\u2019s what I should have said: They love the concept of Willie Nelson: The reality of Willie Nelson is secondary at best.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jim Bessman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE CONCEPT OF WILLIE NELSON Confession: Something was missing in my recent bit on Willie Nelson\u2019s 80th birthday. But I only realized it last week during a long walk home crosstown from the Cutting Room, where I and my new two friends had just seen Buster Poindexter (more on that later). During the show\u2019s intermission, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[6731,5553,6728,1070,6730,6729,1879,6704,2280,6247,1197,6727,3674,2005],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10086,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10084\/revisions\/10086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}