Willie by Willie Nelson

came along playing rock and roll with a country heart. The Flying Burrito Brothers and the Eagles played rock and roll country. The Band did country lyrics in a sort of rock and roll hillbilly style. We got the Allman Brothers, and my friend Leon Russell, and God knows who all else, and by now country music is mixed up in everything.
    But it was Bob Wills who put it all together for me, and it was our old Philco radio that taught it to me.
    As Waylon said, Bob Wills is still the king.
    In high school I loved sports and won letters from the Abbott Fighting Panthers in baseball, basketball, football, and track. I didn’t have a dream, though, of going on with an athletic career and playing third base for the New York Yankees. Staying up late in honky-tonks was not the ideal way for a young athlete to keep in shape.
    I mopped the cafeteria floors in school for a free lunch, and Bobbie and I held a variety of odd jobs around town. For a while we worked the night shift as Abbott’s telephone operator—actually it was Bobbie’s gig, but she cut me in on it—which was interesting, because we listened in on all the conversations.
    Bud Fletcher kept getting us more and more jobs. We went from playing places that seated thirty people into huge halls like the Scenic Wonderland in Waco. Bud booked us in there for the gate. The Scenic Wonderland held 3,000 people. We drew our usual number—about thirty—and didn’t get invited back. But we were working.
    Bobbie was still feeling guilty about playing music in joints that sold liquor. It was so much against the way we were raised. In the eyes of the real staunch church people, we were sinful.
    At that time a lot of people thought professional musicians were kind of a shiftless lot in a way, like actors. It was like on some of the old military bases where they had signs that said
Sailors and dogs stay off the grass
. The same thing applied to musicians.
    But when Bud wangled us a job playing on KHBR radio in Hillsboro, I thought I had reached the highest stardom this world could offer. This was the ultimate. We had our own radio program, we were getting paid to play and sing on the radio, just like Ernest Tubb and my other heroes. I was famous, I thought. I was already a legend in my own mind. I was a teenager and people were asking for my autograph. My head started swelling immediately.
    I thought I was a star because I was treated like one. If you’re the only guy in town who can pick and sing, you receive the star treatment early in life. Same way right now. If you’re the only guy in the barracks in the army who can pick up a guitar and sing a song, then in that particular barracks you’re the star. A local star is just as happy as a national star. Maybe happier, because there’s less responsibility.
    I had found out early that a guitar would draw girls. I don’t like to admit it, but if a girl baited her trap with sex, she’d catch me every time—and it’s unlikely this will ever cease to work. As a teenager I already had a fan club. There was a group of girls who thought I was the greatest thing ever. They bought me a uniform, a nice Western suit, and paid for it themselves. They were like groupies. Everywhere I would play, they’d be there.
    About this time I found another hero, a fellow named Pat Kennedy. Pat was a World War II veteran who had come back to Central Texas. He was shot up and pissed off. Pat was one of the first rebels that I remember, a real system-bucker. He told everybody in town where to get off. Pat didn’t want to do a damn thing except listen to our band and give us advice. He was on disability. People in town made remarks about Pat not wanting to work for a living. Pat didn’t give a shit what they thought. So what if they thought he was a no-good drunkard? He’d point at his ass and say, “You all line up and kiss old rosy.” Pat did whatever he wanted to do. He seemed like