transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] One by Willie is brought to you by Wadaburger. Willie's been doing things his way for over 70 years, and Wadaburger's been doing the same. Fresh beef, made to order, no shortcuts. Some things are just worth doing right. Find yours at wadaburger.com. What makes a song a smash on the charts? Hey there, I'm Chris Malanfi, host of the Slate podcast, Hip Parade. I tell tales for more than a half century of pop chart history. I've explained why Steely Dan is yacht rock and Jimmy Buffet isn't. How the members of disco band Sheik wrote a baseline that launched hip hop. For tales like these of the hits from coast to coast, follow Hip Parade wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2:
[00:58] Hey there, I'm John Spong, and this is One by Willie, a podcast in which I talk each week to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they really love. This week, we celebrate Willie turning 93 with another one of our special Icon on Icon birthday tributes. This time, we've got 14-time Grammy winner in Country Music Hall of Famer, Emmylou Harris, who will talk about a song she used to sing every night with Willie when their bands toured together in the 70s, Till I Gain Control Again. It was, of course, written by an all-time favorite songwriter of both Emmylou and Willie, Rodney Crowell, who was also in Emmys band back in those days. And it gets her thinking about being a young artist witnessing the deep, almost spiritual connection that Willie forged with his fans, and the way that she and Willie, and her old producer Brian Ahern, worked to reintroduce country music to its roots back in the 70s. All that, plus the day that Elvis died, the eternal influence of Emmy's original country duet's partner, Graham Parsons, the making of Willie's Teatro album, and Emmy's, shall we say, foolproof strategy for following Willie's phrasing when they sing together. So let's do it. Well, then, Emmy, should we get going?
Speaker 3:
[02:42] Yeah, I'm here. I'm ready. Chopping it to bits.
Speaker 2:
[02:49] We never get that, so we're thrilled. The place where we typically start, and it's always a goofy question, but particularly in this instance, just as a song, what is so cool about Till I Gain Control Again?
Speaker 3:
[03:06] Well, that song was the first song that Rodney ever sang to me in person. And of course, Rodney has been so important in my life and music and everything else. So, and I ended up recording it for an album called Elite Hotel that came out in 76. And then, I guess, Willie heard it and a few years later, seemed like all my touring was opening for Willie, which was a wonderful experience. And he would have me come out and sing harmony on it. Of course, I love the song so much. And that was just a part of the tour. We do our show, Open for Willie, and then he would do his marathon show, which was wonderful to just be an experience of there. Because you felt the audience is for Willie. It was like going to church for them. There was something more than just coming to a concert. And I don't mean that he did a lot of spirituals. I mean, he did, but it was just a celebration of all the things we share as people. Love and loss and joy. So and then at the end, I was able to come out and a lot of my band members would come out and sit in with him. And we became part of the family, Willie's family for those several years.
Speaker 2:
[04:27] I love the spiritual, vaguely religious way you describe it. It's funny, I talked to Willie's long-time manager, Mark Rothbaum, who's essentially a co-star on these shows. He appears so often. It is such a big part of Willie's life. But I was asking him about this song in particular. And he said that angel flying too close to the ground, until I gain control again, or as close as I get to religion. He said, with gain control again, he said all the years that Willie would do that song, at that point in the show, everything got quiet. And all the craziness stopped, and everybody listened. And then he said, and this was really beautiful, he said, there's a Jewish prayer called the Shema. It's a peaceful moment in the service. There's a calm that lays over you. And that's what this song always did at Willie's shows.
Speaker 3:
[05:15] Right. Well, I agree. Because really, when you think about it, it can be a song about a person that you love, and that helps you through life. Or it can be about your own personal relationship with, you know, where you find that spiritual part of your life.
Speaker 2:
[05:31] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[05:31] That remains a mystery to all of us, but we know that something is there.
Speaker 2:
[05:36] Yeah. That strikes me as a good place to listen to the song together, if you're up for it.
Speaker 3:
[05:42] Oh, of course.
Speaker 2:
[05:43] I'd like to do a new song for you. This is a song that Rodney Crowell wrote called Till I Gain Control Again. All right.
Speaker 3:
[05:48] We'll do that one, too.
Speaker 4:
[06:42] lies to you.
Speaker 2:
[07:39] That version was off of the famous, the great Willie Nelson and Family Live album from Harris Casino in Tahoe. You were on that, right?
Speaker 3:
[07:48] Well, that was me singing.
Speaker 2:
[07:51] What's it do to you now? Does it take you back?
Speaker 3:
[07:54] Oh, yeah. I mean, we did that every night when I opened for him. And then he would do, Will the Circle Be Unbroken? You know, it was just a, it was always a celebration. Willie Nelson concert was a celebration every night.
Speaker 2:
[08:11] Knowing the song as well as you do, are there lines in it that really stand out? Is there, what's the magic in that song?
Speaker 3:
[08:18] Well, I think, thinking back to, let's see, there is nothing I could hide from you. See, you see me better than I can. Yeah. And that idea, that song was actually one of my father's favorite songs.
Speaker 2:
[08:32] Oh, really?
Speaker 3:
[08:33] And it was always special to me.
Speaker 2:
[08:36] I asked Rodney about writing it and he said, I have no memory really of writing it. He said, I feel like it just appeared to me. And then he said, he said, I swear I didn't steal it. I swear I didn't steal it, but I am convinced that if I hadn't played, help me make it through the night a hundred times in a holiday inn in East Texas, I never would have written that song.
Speaker 3:
[08:58] Yeah, one song, it's like you ingested and it becomes part of you. And then it comes out in your own words.
Speaker 2:
[09:05] Yeah. And then Rodney's words, there's something to listen to it just now and to look at it with lyrics. I'd always thought it even had more words in it than it actually does. It reminds me a little of Guy Clark's Heartbroken. The words are pretty, it's simple. There's not a bunch of SAT words in it or anything, but there's this intelligence in the way the words are deployed.
Speaker 3:
[09:27] It's harder to write a simple song that works than it is a complicated one.
Speaker 4:
[09:32] Is it?
Speaker 3:
[09:33] That's, I think, what makes country music so powerful.
Speaker 4:
[09:36] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[09:37] You only have three chords and the truth as Harlan Howard used to call country music.
Speaker 2:
[09:41] Right. Is it fun to sing? Have you always dug singing the songs? You cut it before Willie did.
Speaker 3:
[09:46] Well, I did. It's funny, after Willie did it, to me, it became Willie's song. The only time I perform it now really is when Rodney and I do things together like guitar pulls or something. I sing the chorus as I did with Willie, and I usually sing the last two lines of the second verse. I put a harmony on that. I do enjoy revisiting that song in that way.
Speaker 2:
[10:15] Rodney said that for as many times as he's sung that, he says, I don't step into it as comfortably as Willie does when he sings it.
Speaker 3:
[10:23] Well, that's his problem. He wrote it. He doesn't have to do anything else. To write a song like that, I don't know what, was he 21 years old or something?
Speaker 2:
[10:35] Just a punk kid.
Speaker 3:
[10:37] That's just not right.
Speaker 2:
[10:39] It's not fair.
Speaker 3:
[10:40] Certainly not fair. What a gifted writer he is.
Speaker 2:
[11:34] Talk about Willie's strength as an interpreter. What is it that Willie does that ends up giving him possession of all these songs that other people wrote?
Speaker 3:
[11:43] Well, I mean, first of all, nobody has a voice like Willie's.
Speaker 2:
[11:47] Right.
Speaker 3:
[11:47] Well, you can hear it a little, actually in his children, you know, Lucas. And one of his daughters, they did a duet together of a John Fogerty song just recently that came over the radio.
Speaker 2:
[11:58] Oh, yeah. He and Paula did that. Have you ever seen The Rain?
Speaker 3:
[12:02] So I went, okay, I hear that Willie Gene in there. But, you know, and of course, the way that he plays guitar and sings, I think Rodney once said, Willie sings, it's like fly fishing, his phrase. That's meant to be a compliment, by the way. But I did have to watch Willie, you know, I did have to watch him to get his phrasing. And that was particularly true, not just live, but when Daniel An-Ma did the Teatro album.
Speaker 2:
[12:36] Right.
Speaker 3:
[12:36] You know, because I might have been vaguely familiar with some of his old catalog that he did on that album. I was watching like a hawk. I was watching his mouth, trying to catch it like a fish.
Speaker 2:
[12:53] I was going to ask about that because, yeah, and it's funny when we had Roseanne Cash on here very early on in the show, it was one of the moments when we realized we're doing something special. Because she attributed the fly fishing line to you, not Rodney. She said.
Speaker 3:
[13:06] No, that was Rodney. I'm not clever enough to come up with something like that.
Speaker 2:
[13:12] But it's that hard, right?
Speaker 3:
[13:14] Well, he just has a way of doing a song and maybe even changing the melody. But whether it's his melody or someone else's, he puts a Willie in it.
Speaker 2:
[13:29] But like you've said, for you harmonizing, I feel like at times that I've read quotes from you where you've said that you prefer that even to sing in by yourself. It's that third voice thing as you describe it.
Speaker 3:
[13:41] It's a different thing because it's like a dance, and you're following the leader. So they're leading you into the emotion of the line. But basically, I'm just thinking about following the phrasing. It's not the pressure to tell the story in the song. You're just adding something to it. You see what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I'm the Changer Rogers to his Fred Astaire.
Speaker 2:
[14:06] Well, I cannot argue with your take on what you do. But when I hear you do it, it occurred to me a long time ago. I never hear you in a supporting role. It always sounds to me like a full-on collaboration when you harmonize with somebody.
Speaker 3:
[14:21] Well, it is. It's definitely. But as I say, you are singing to a lead, and I mean, that's what duet singing is. Yeah. But it is true that for me, because I'm not a schooled musician, singer, what's the tenor, what's the baritone, whatever. For me, it's a second lead. Right. It's a second lead.
Speaker 2:
[14:44] Well, it's interesting because I don't know who said it first, but Ann Richards used to always talk about how you might think that Ginger Rogers was dancing in support of Fred Astaire, that she was doing it backwards and in heels.
Speaker 3:
[14:55] In high heels, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[14:56] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[14:56] Oh yeah. I've used that before. Though I can't wear high heels anymore and never could do very well.
Speaker 2:
[15:06] I don't want to spend all day on the phone making you listen to things, but can I show you a clip from Teatro because since you brought it up.
Speaker 3:
[15:13] Oh yeah. That was a wonderful, wonderful film that Vim Vinders did.
Speaker 2:
[15:18] That's how I learned to start pronouncing it Vim Vinders, because I kept telling everybody about it.
Speaker 3:
[15:22] I always felt that that album, Teatro, could have been nominated for one at least three Grammys in different categories.
Speaker 2:
[15:31] Which ones?
Speaker 3:
[15:32] Then the documentary, well, Country, Jazz, Willie, category for Willie. Of course, the film was just spectacular. I wish more people had seen it, and I wish more people knew about that album.
Speaker 2:
[15:50] Mickey told me once he said, because for people who aren't following, y'all did the album in the theater in Oxnard, California that Daniel Nwaw had created with Mark Howard. Then once the record was finished, they brought them vendors in and y'all just ran through all the songs again live and created this document. Mickey said that he feels like the music in the movie is better than the stuff that they got on the album.
Speaker 3:
[16:17] Well, I'm so glad they both exist. I think right after that, I think there's another whole album in the can somewhere because we recorded many more songs than what appear on the Teatro album.
Speaker 2:
[16:30] Oh, wow. I'll wait for that.
Speaker 3:
[16:34] But Willie had to get back to his other job of playing golf. There's a quote from, I think, that is attributed to Willie, that he was asked when he was going to retire. He said, well, all I do is play music and play golf. Which one do you want me to give up? But Willie did live his way. He did both.
Speaker 2:
[16:58] Right. We will send the listeners to YouTube to find this video, because the video from that movie does exist on YouTube. So let me hit this. You see it?
Speaker 3:
[17:11] Yeah. Wow, I can't believe I followed him on that four chord at the end. Because I hadn't seen these songs. But as you can see, how I had to watch him. It was lovely to see Bobby, image of Bobby there for a second. Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[18:21] When you're following Willie, what do you look for? Are there ticks?
Speaker 2:
[18:25] Are there tells? Are you studying? Are you getting a sense of his inhalations?
Speaker 5:
[18:30] How do you follow?
Speaker 3:
[18:31] I have no idea. But you just try to be in the moment with him. You get the feel of the groove. What can I say? It's a miracle. So delighted to have been a part of that.
Speaker 2:
[18:52] It's such a beautiful record. Actually, we did one of these with Adrian Casada, who's in the Black Pumas and he knows all about Latin music. He explained how you can hear so much of the flamenco and Latin influence in Willie's guitar playing on that album.
Speaker 3:
[19:07] That's another Grammy, you know.
Speaker 2:
[19:09] Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:
[19:10] Latin album.
Speaker 2:
[19:13] He said that when he listens to Willie's guitar solos, that it makes him think most of Cuban jazz pianists, like Ruben Gonzalez. And I'm like, that shit's over my head. But it's cool because I saw a quote from you once talking about this, and you said that thinking, when you talk about singing with Willie, thinking is the enemy of performance. There's a leap of faith you take when you're singing with people like Willie, and you know that they're not looking for perfection. They're not looking for every note sung exactly the same way. They're looking for something sung in the key of life.
Speaker 3:
[19:46] Oh, that sounds wonderful. I actually said that. Apparently.
Speaker 5:
[19:51] It got past the fact checkers.
Speaker 3:
[19:53] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[19:54] Are there other songs that Willie has done with you, that you dig in particular?
Speaker 3:
[20:02] Well, I'm trying to think. Well, we sang together. I did a Christmas album, one of the better kept secrets in the music business, where we actually recorded a song of Rodney's called Angel Eyes, and that was a duet between me and Willie and he played the solo. And then I did a bluegrass album in 1980, that came out in 1980, Roses in the Snow. And I had recorded an old gospel number called Green Pastures. And we wanted it to be very, very, I like to stray and go around and not, you know, stray outside the lines. But on this record, we made, we said we gonna make a pure bluegrass album. But the one thing that Brian and I did that went outside the lines was for Green Pastures, was a very, very traditional bluegrass spiritual. We had Willie play the solo. And Dolly and Ricky Skaggs did the harmonies with me. And I love that solo, you know, he made it work even though it wasn't like the other instrumentation on the album.
Speaker 2:
[21:35] It's interesting when he did the bluegrass album a couple of years ago and Buddy Ken and his producer got all the great pickers, bluegrass players to play on it. Willie opted, and it was all old Willie songs, Willie opted not to play any guitar on it because he said, I'm not a bluegrass player and this is supposed to be a bluegrass project. And so I want to almost honor that.
Speaker 3:
[21:55] You know, I think I missed that record. He makes so many. What was it called?
Speaker 5:
[21:59] It was called Bluegrass.
Speaker 3:
[22:01] Oh, okay. Well, I've got to check that out.
Speaker 5:
[22:03] It's pretty strong.
Speaker 2:
[22:04] It's great. But yeah, his guitar solo is, and I had read that because the record label didn't want you making a bluegrass record in 1980 or 81 or whatever it was.
Speaker 3:
[22:13] There was one particular person. But Warner Brothers, a very, very creative record company who understood why they even signed an artist. And so they got behind everything I did. And I think for all the artists that were on that label had that freedom.
Speaker 2:
[22:35] That's cool. That's cool. I'd wondered if trying to get a bluegrass past them wasn't a little bit like Willie trying to get Stardust past Columbia a couple of years before.
Speaker 3:
[22:45] No, there was a little worry in the beginning. But it really just came from one person. And ultimately, it became my first album that I recorded to go gold. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[23:02] Emmy wins.
Speaker 3:
[23:03] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[24:00] We'll be back with more One by Willie right after this quick break.
Speaker 2:
[24:06] There's a bunch of reasons I'm thrilled that Water Burger has teamed up with One by Willie, starting with fresh beef made to order, no shortcuts. And then there's also the spicy ketchup, which is great on the fries and rings. But maybe the main reason is that Water Burger is the only place that both my kids love. So to quote the commercials and my young children, what a burger.
Speaker 4:
[24:33] I'm David Remnick, host of The New Yorker Radio Hour. There's nothing like finding a story you can really sink into that lets you tune out the noise and focus on what matters. In print or here on the podcast, The New Yorker brings you thoughtfulness and depth and even humor that you can't find anywhere else. So please join me every week for The New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 5:
[25:02] And with that, we are back.
Speaker 2:
[25:05] When did you first become acquainted with Willie's music? If you didn't grow up on a lot of country, when did you first start listening to him?
Speaker 3:
[25:12] Oh, I don't know. I guess around the time he made Redhead a Stranger, and that made a lot of noise around musicians and people who, as I say, color outside the lines. And then, of course, I don't remember how I actually got the gig to open for him. And then, it was Willie and more Willie every night. I always loved, I loved Blue Eyes Crane in the Rain. If there's something about that song, the startness of it and the simplicity of it, and his reading of it. Every night, I waited for that.
Speaker 2:
[25:52] I love that because that album comes out in 75, I want to say in May or June. A couple months before that is when your first Warner album, Pieces of the Sky comes out, and just like Willie's record was so, Redhead Stranger was so stripped back, and it's just the roots, it's just the core of this great music. Pieces of the Sky was that way too.
Speaker 3:
[26:15] It had more production on it, but I don't think that his record actually impacted me in any way. I think I was in a bubble.
Speaker 2:
[26:25] But yours predated it, is what I mean. And so, just to give a sense, If I Could Only Win Your Love went to number four, if I remember, off of that record, and that was in September. And so, when it went to number four, this is the song, this will give a sense of what country music was like in 1975. And this is a song I love with all my heart, but this is what keeps you from the top spot. Can you hear that?
Speaker 3:
[26:55] Oh, yeah, I can hear it.
Speaker 2:
[27:10] I mean, I love that song, but to go from that to... And then, as you say to this...
Speaker 3:
[28:00] Yeah, I mean, it was, we were sneaking in, weren't we, to back to really roots. I mean, I was a huge Leuven Brothers fan. It was Graham who turned me on to the Leuven Brothers. And I think that's probably the first time a mandolin, if there was a mandolin solo played by Byron Berline on, if I can only win you up. I think it was probably the first time a mandolin had been heard on country radio in, God, maybe decades. But that was because of my friend John Starling, who was the lead singer in the Seldom Scene, sort of a local, very popular bluegrass group who went on to be sort of popular worldwide with John Duffy and Michael Aldridge. And when I played the rough mix of When I Can Only Win Your Love, because we didn't cut it with a mandolin. And he said, man, that's great. He said, you just need to add a mandolin solo. And he was right. It just added that little beautiful sparkle to it. And yeah, we were surprised when that did as well as it did though.
Speaker 2:
[29:13] Did it feel like you were doing something transgressive?
Speaker 3:
[29:16] Well, it was something I loved and I knew I wanted to do something like that in the Leuven Brothers stuff because I had come up through folk music. And so that's kind of where I started. But then when I got immersed into country, Leuven Brothers and it's what floats your boat. I mean, there's no other way to say it. And I was, as I mentioned before, with a record company and I had a producer with a very successful track record with Anne Murray.
Speaker 2:
[29:52] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[29:53] But on the other hand, I knew I wasn't Anne Murray and Brian had the brilliance and the understanding that you don't try to take an artist and make them like another artist. You find an artist's strengths and the passion that a particular artist has. So I was lucky. I fell in with the best crowd, you know what I mean, that walked me through those records and the bands I had and set the tone for the rest of my career.
Speaker 2:
[30:23] Well, and talk about the band, the idea of seeing you guys, the hot band and Willie and the family. I mean, I think if I could go back in time, that would be one of the tour stops I'd want to see. I mean, two very different bands, right?
Speaker 3:
[30:39] Yeah. I mean, we were both doing country music, but you know, Willie Stamp was so different. And my band, the Hot Band, of course, was named at because early on, the first guitar player was James Burton.
Speaker 6:
[30:52] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[30:52] And then we had a completely different stylist playing country music in Albert Lee.
Speaker 6:
[30:59] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[31:00] But they were both hot. They were hot guitarists, as well as Glenn D. Hardin from Elvis' band and Emory Gordy. Just a wonderful group that I was so lucky to have that, to be presented sort of to the world with these musicians backing me. I mean, I look back on it now, I almost have to pinch myself and say that was some other force at work. It was like this was supposed to be. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:
[31:28] Well, and then Willie's band is almost a jam band. There's two bassists, there's two drummers.
Speaker 3:
[31:33] Because Willie could never fire anybody. Two drummers, two bassists.
Speaker 2:
[31:40] What were the guys in his band like? Because one's Chris Etheridge, he had worked with Graham.
Speaker 3:
[31:44] Well, I actually had very, I of course Chris Etheridge from the Fine Burrito Brothers.
Speaker 2:
[31:50] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[31:51] I wasn't around Graham then. My meeting him came much later. But of course, I knew Chris, I think that Graham and I had had a dinner with him and his wife at one point when we were working on our record together. But I didn't really know Chris that well. But yeah, but I got to know him a little bit and B Spears and the Jermers and everybody. We did become like a big family. We socialized together and traveled separately in buses, but there was obviously a lot of time hanging out with each other. Willie said it best, so life I love is making music with my friends. That's such a simple statement. But anybody who's been a musician in a traveling band, where the people really get along and like each other, and that's always been the case with my bands, it was the case with Willie's band. It's just an experience that is priceless.
Speaker 2:
[32:51] From what I've read, for you, a big thing, a big expression of friendship and camaraderie with the bands would always be like just staying up and playing guitars and harmonizing and singing until the sun comes up. Would that be the kind of thing you would do with Willie's band back then too?
Speaker 3:
[33:07] Well, you know what, if you're going to do a show every night, you don't do that. I mean, obviously, there was a bus, we laugh and played funny comedy tapes. So we almost developed our own language, and I guess Willie and them had theirs too, but somehow we understood each other. You know, so it worked out.
Speaker 2:
[33:34] This may sound like a weird question then, but with all the touring together, where were you when you learned that Elvis had died?
Speaker 3:
[33:43] Oh, okay. That's the story. I was in Memphis. I was in Memphis opening for Willie, and I was in my hotel room getting ready to go to a down check or getting ready for the show, because it was in the afternoon, I think. I was listening to the radio and I heard the news. That was a strange night, because people didn't know how to absorb it. Willie never said a word. He never said a word. He never does. Willie only sings. He might introduce the band, but I'm saying normally. I think he just realized that people just needed to hear music. Although Jerry Lee Lewis did show up and try to take over for a couple of songs. I think he is only, I don't know. I don't know what I can say, but it was a very strange night, because I had never met Elvis. I had several of the TCB band in my band, and it heard a lot of wonderful Elvis stories. I had planned on going to see him the Christmas before he died that August. I was living in LA and Brian and I said, let's go see my band members. They would play with him and then when they didn't play with him, they would play with me. Let's go see Glendy and everybody play in Las Vegas. And it wasn't that far of a drive and you know how it is. You say, oh, I'll do it next year. You know, when you get an idea to go see somebody, you should do it because you never know what's going to happen. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[35:25] And when Rodney talked about that day, he said, you know, that he's flying from Nashville to Memphis for the show and meets up with, I think, James and Glenn D at the airport. And so if there's young people that don't have an idea of what a huge day this would have been, especially in the life of a musician in 1977, when this happens. This is like when Kennedy was shot, right? You know, this was this huge figure. But it was these guys' friend. And Rodney said it was so difficult, I think from what I've read that a lot of things in Memphis just got canceled that night.
Speaker 3:
[35:58] It could have been. I don't remember that. I just remember there was a, like people didn't know how to deal with it. You felt something in the audience that was not as celebratory as Willie shows usually are. But Willie just gave them the gift of his music and his presence, which was always something that was, you just seen Willie on stage, somebody that was doing what he loved so well, who was in that zone. There's a certain comfort in that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[36:32] I was thinking because I had also heard that Jerry Lee Lewis was something of a problem that night. According to some reports was storming around the stage saying, now I'm the king.
Speaker 3:
[36:43] Well, I heard that. I didn't hear it myself, but whatever.
Speaker 2:
[36:48] Right. But also, if he sat down at Bobby's Piano, and you don't mess with Bobby's Piano. Some people said, Jerry Lee was assisted away from Bobby's Piano and off the stage, and that's how that ended. If that then later in the show, you get to more spiritual moments, like, Gain Control Again, that would be the way Willie pays tribute.
Speaker 3:
[37:14] Right.
Speaker 2:
[37:43] You're writing a memoir. Is Willie in it?
Speaker 3:
[37:47] Of course.
Speaker 2:
[37:48] What's Willie doing in your book?
Speaker 3:
[37:50] Well, I'm just talking about going on the road with him. And also, I don't think I actually talk about this, but once when Willie was so, he was protected from the public, but he was open to the public in the sense that, I think there was once, I can't remember if I actually witnessed this or I actually heard how the years come in and fog your mind, but someone working at the huge venue, you know how the band goes on before Willie and they start the downbeat to Whiskey River and done, done, done. And he was accosted, not, I don't mean accosted, but just somebody who worked there. I don't know whether they were janitor or just somebody who worked at the venue, you know, just, you know, came up to Willie and just had to say what like what Willie meant to him. And what Willie knew how important it was for this man. This was the person that he sang his songs to. You know, that was his audience. And he stood there and let this man go on while the band. For, I mean, I don't know how long it was, but you know, anything like that would seem like a long time when the audience is waiting for Willie to go up. And then finally, when Willie realized that the man had had his say, so gracious, walked on stage and Whiskey River, you know, break my mind. So, and I realized that it is important to make yourself available in certain instances to people who want to say hello to you, who want your autograph, who want you to sign something, who want to tell a story. And so whenever possible, when I'm on tour, even after a long show, after getting myself together and getting on the bus, either go back to the hotel or take a long drive to the next, if someone waits, has been waiting outside, I will sit and sign. And because I feel I wouldn't be able to do what I love, it weren't for these people that show up at the shows and buy the records and we do have a connection.
Speaker 2:
[40:00] It's a very real relationship, isn't it?
Speaker 3:
[40:04] Perhaps it's an unnatural relation. It's not someone you have an intimacy with, but there is a certain intimacy because you are singing those songs to them.
Speaker 2:
[40:14] And those songs make such a difference in their lives. And they mean different things to everybody that hears them.
Speaker 3:
[40:19] Well, the fact that you can do something that touches another person's life is an extraordinary thing.
Speaker 2:
[40:25] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[40:25] And not anything to be taken lightly and something to be grateful for.
Speaker 2:
[40:29] Yeah. Wait, it's interesting. Because when I think about how the song is meaning different things to different people, I'm going to, every time I hear Gain Control Again, I'll think of it differently. Because you earlier made me think of it as a gospel song and it fits that.
Speaker 3:
[40:43] Well, that second verse, it's almost like he talks about our earthly love. And then you can think of it as that search.
Speaker 2:
[40:53] Yeah. What is, do you think, Willie's impact on music history? In what way is his impact most felt?
Speaker 3:
[41:06] Well, I don't know. I mean, as far as music, I mean, here he is, he brought a lot of young and old people together. He brought generations together. He's still doing that in a time when we desperately need that. I mean, we always need it, but we desperately need it now. And I think, you know, if they don't add Willie to Mount Rushmore, they should create another one. He's larger than life and yet he is every man at the same time. Yeah, Johnny Cash was like that too, I think.
Speaker 5:
[41:41] Huh.
Speaker 2:
[41:42] Willie and Annie actually do listen to these. She'll text me afterwards and let me know how I did.
Speaker 5:
[41:50] Since it's a birthday episode, do you have a birthday wish for?
Speaker 3:
[41:54] Oh, I just say God bless you, Willie. I'm so glad I was born in the same time, lived part of my life in the same time as you, Willie Nelson. You just heal my heart. I love you and I want to see you. I want to see you on your next birthday, next year. There we go.
Speaker 2:
[42:16] I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this.
Speaker 3:
[42:18] I'm glad we were able to get it done. I thank you very much. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:
[42:52] All right, Willie fans, that was Emmylou Harris talking about Till I Gain Control Again and sending Willie the happiest of 93rd birthday wishes. A huge thanks to her for coming on the show, and a big thanks to you for tuning in. If you dig the show, please subscribe, maybe tell a couple friends, and stop by our website at onebywilly.com. Oh, and please visit our page wherever you get your podcasts, and give us some stars or type in some comments. Every little bit of that helps more than you know. One by Willie is a production of John Spong and PRX in partnership with Texas Monthly. Our PRX production team is Jocelyn Gonzalez, Patrick Grant, Pedro Rafael Rosado, and project manager Edwin Ochoa, with graphic design work by Joanna Holden and Modular Inc. Our Texas Monthly team is engineer Brian Standifer and executive producers Megan Crichton and Melissa Rees. We get invaluable research and editing help from Dominic Wellhouse.
Speaker 5:
[43:51] Please follow us on Instagram, One by Willie, all one word.
Speaker 2:
[43:55] Find us on Blue Sky and join our ever expanding Willie Conversation, the One by Willie group on Facebook. I'm your host, John Spong. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 6:
[44:18] One by Willie is brought to you by Whataburger. Willie's been doing things his way for over 70 years, and Whataburger's been doing the same. Fresh beef, made to order, no shortcuts. Some things are just worth doing right. Find yours at whataburger.com.