MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS
WILLIE NELSON
SONGWRITER: S. RICE
COUNTRY: U. S. A.
ALBUM: THE ELECTRIC HORSEMAN
LABEL: COLUMBIA RECORDS
GENRE: COUNTRY
YEAR: 1979
Willie Hugh Nelson(born April 29, 1933) is an
American musician, actor, and activist. The critical success of the álbum Shotgun Willie(1973),
combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed
Stranger (1975) and Stardust(1978),
made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of
the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre
of country music that developed in the late 1960s as a reaction to the
conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound.
Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been
involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.
Born during the Great Depression and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age
seven and joined his first band at ten. During high school, he toured locally with the
Bohemian Polka as their lead singer and guitar player. After
graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the U.S. Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return,
Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music.
During this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations
and a singer in honky-tonks. Nelson
moved to Vancouver,
Washington, where he wrote "Family Bible"
and recorded the song "Lumberjack" in 1956. He also worked as a disc
jockey at various radio stations in Vancouver and nearby Portland, Oregon. In
1958, he moved to Houston, Texas,
after signing a contract with D Records. He sang
at the Esquire Ballroom weekly and he worked as a disc jockey. During that time, he wrote songs
that would become country standards, including "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Hello Walls",
"Pretty Paper", and "Crazy". In 1960
he moved to Nashville,
Tennessee, and later signed a publishing contract with
Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Price's band as a bassist. In 1962, he recorded his first album, ...And Then I
Wrote. Due to this success, Nelson signed in 1964
with RCA Victor and
joined the Grand Ole Opry the following year. After mid-chart hits in the late 1960s and the
early 1970s, Nelson retired in 1972 and moved to Austin, Texas. The
ongoing music scene of Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement,
performing frequently at the Armadillo
World Headquarters.
In 1973, after signing with Atlantic Records, Nelson
turned to outlaw country, including albums such as Shotgun Willie and Phases
and Stages. In 1975, he switched to Columbia Records, where he recorded the
critically acclaimed álbum Red Headed Stranger. The same year, he recorded
another outlaw country album, Wanted! The
Outlaws, along with Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. During
the mid-1980s, while creating hit albums like Honeysuckle
Rose and recording hit songs like "On the Road Again",
"To All the
Girls I've Loved Before", and "Pancho and Lefty",
he joined the country supergroup The
Highwaymen, along with fellow singers Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson.
In 1990, Nelson's assets were seized by the Internal
Revenue Service, which claimed that he owed $32million.
The difficulty of
paying his outstanding debt was aggravated by weak investments he had made
during the 1980s. In 1992, Nelson released The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories?;
the profits of the double album—destined to the IRS—and the auction of Nelson's
assets cleared his debt. During
the 1990s and 2000s, Nelson continued touring extensively, and released albums
every year. Reviews ranged from positive to mixed. He explored genres such as
reggae, blues, jazz, and folk.
Nelson made his first movie appearance in the
1979 film The Electric
Horseman, followed by other appearances in movies and
on television. Nelson is a major liberal activist and
the co-chair of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws(NORML), which is in favor of marijuana
legalization. On the environmental front, Nelson owns the biodiesel brand Willie Nelson
Biodiesel, whose product is made from vegetable oil. Nelson is also the honorary
chairman of the advisory board of the Texas Music Project, the official music
charity of the state of Texas.
The Electric Horseman: Music from the
Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the Sydney Pollack film The Electric
Horseman.
I grew up a-dreamin'
of bein' a cowboy
And lovin' the cowboy ways
Pursuin' the life of my high-ridin' heroes
I burned up my childhood days
I learned all the rules of a modern-day drifter
Don't you hold on to nothin' too long
Just take what you need from the ladies, then leave them
With the words of a sad country song
My heroes have always been cowboys
And they still are, it seems
Sadly, in search of, but one step in back of
Themselves and their slow-movin' dreams
Cowboys are special
with their own brand of misery
From bein' alone too long
You could die from the cold in the arms of a nightman
Knowin' well that your best days are gone
Pickin' up hookers instead of my pen
I let the words of my youth fade away
Old worn-out saddles, and old worn-out memories
With no one and no place to stay
My heroes have always
been cowboys
And they still are, it seems
Sadly, in search of, and one step in back of
Themselves and their slow-movin' dreams
Sadly, in search of, and one step in back of.
Themselves and
their slow-movin' dreams.
Postagens
