Read Online Willie Nelson by Joe Nick Patoski - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Joe Nick Patoski
Tags: BIO004000
Ads: Link
very drunk one too many times, tying him up with jump rope and beating him with a broom.
“I didn’t do half what I should’ve done,” she later complained.
They argued, they fought, they smoked, they drank, only to kiss and make up and dance before they fought again.
“Martha was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian,” explained Willie. “And every night was like Custer’s last stand.”
W ACO’S appeal diminished at 4:36 p.m. on May 11, 1953, when a monster black cloud dropped a tornado a half mile wide on the city. Willie and a friend watched the twister from across the Brazos. The twister killed 114 people, injured more than 1,000, damaged 850 homes, and trashed 2,000 automobiles. Most of Waco’s downtown was torn apart. The city never fully recovered, not even three years later, when a very famous GI from Fort Hood named Elvis Presley started hanging out in Waco on furlough.
Willie stuck around Waco for another year. His brief tenure in the military allowed him to enroll at Baylor University for the spring and summer semesters in 1954 with his tuition paid by the GI Bill. Ostensibly, he was studying agriculture and business as a part-time student with the vague idea of going into law. He rented a house for Martha and their new baby girl on North 5th Street near Cameron Park and got a job at Ozark Leather on a saddle-making assembly line, coming home stinking of wet cowhide. He tried selling encyclopedias door-to-door, until a dog chased him back into his car. In truth, Willie was spending more time catting around with Zeke, majoring in 42 (a popular game of dominoes) while working on a PhD in honky-tonk.
San Antonio, 1954
T HE NEON SIGN on the Laredo Highway blinked “AL’S COU TRY CL B.” A hand-painted signboard leaning on the front of the windowless building advertised “Live Band.” Willie and Cosett Holland pulled over. They’d found the place they’d been looking for on the south side of San Antonio, the oldest and third-largest city in Texas, which looked more like Mexico than any part of Texas Willie had seen.
Al’s Country Club was where the Mission City Playboys were playing. Willie and Cosett, who worked together in Bud Fletcher and the Texans back home, had already approached Easy Adams, the leader of the Texas Tophands, the hottest Western Swing dance band in South Texas, but Easy didn’t have any work to offer.
“Well, then, who’s the second-most popular band in San Antonio?” Willie asked. Easy Adams’s answer took them to Al’s. “They wanted to know if they could sit in,” Dave Isbell, the bandleader, said. “I told them, ‘Come on.’ At the end of the night, I asked Holland if he wanted to join the band, because I was looking for a fiddle player. He said he wanted the job. Then the other guy came up to me and said, ‘We’re working together. We’d like to be together.’”
The band agreed to add Willie Nelson too and to give him a split of whatever money they made. Dave Isbell said Willie’s timing was good. “My lead guitar player was at Lackland AFB and got transferred to Germany. Willie stepped right on in.” Cosett Holland played fiddle, Johnny Bush played drums, Lucky Carajohn played piano, Carl Walker played steel, Frog Isbell played bass, and Dave Isbell led the band, much like Bud Fletcher led the Texans. Willie played lead guitar but never sang.
Willie moved Martha and his baby girl, De Lana, born in Hill County on November 11, 1953, into the back half of a rent house on Labor Street, just southeast of downtown San Antonio. Carl Walker lived with a woman in the front of the house. Cosett Holland slept on a cot in the dining room in between. When they weren’t playing dances, they were checking out other dances and the nightlife of San Antonio, which was not unlike the nightlife in West and Waco. “Same music, same people, only more places to play,” Willie said.
San Antonio was the biggest small town in Texas. Between its reputation as a trade center
“I didn’t do half what I should’ve done,” she later complained.
They argued, they fought, they smoked, they drank, only to kiss and make up and dance before they fought again.
“Martha was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian,” explained Willie. “And every night was like Custer’s last stand.”
W ACO’S appeal diminished at 4:36 p.m. on May 11, 1953, when a monster black cloud dropped a tornado a half mile wide on the city. Willie and a friend watched the twister from across the Brazos. The twister killed 114 people, injured more than 1,000, damaged 850 homes, and trashed 2,000 automobiles. Most of Waco’s downtown was torn apart. The city never fully recovered, not even three years later, when a very famous GI from Fort Hood named Elvis Presley started hanging out in Waco on furlough.
Willie stuck around Waco for another year. His brief tenure in the military allowed him to enroll at Baylor University for the spring and summer semesters in 1954 with his tuition paid by the GI Bill. Ostensibly, he was studying agriculture and business as a part-time student with the vague idea of going into law. He rented a house for Martha and their new baby girl on North 5th Street near Cameron Park and got a job at Ozark Leather on a saddle-making assembly line, coming home stinking of wet cowhide. He tried selling encyclopedias door-to-door, until a dog chased him back into his car. In truth, Willie was spending more time catting around with Zeke, majoring in 42 (a popular game of dominoes) while working on a PhD in honky-tonk.
San Antonio, 1954
T HE NEON SIGN on the Laredo Highway blinked “AL’S COU TRY CL B.” A hand-painted signboard leaning on the front of the windowless building advertised “Live Band.” Willie and Cosett Holland pulled over. They’d found the place they’d been looking for on the south side of San Antonio, the oldest and third-largest city in Texas, which looked more like Mexico than any part of Texas Willie had seen.
Al’s Country Club was where the Mission City Playboys were playing. Willie and Cosett, who worked together in Bud Fletcher and the Texans back home, had already approached Easy Adams, the leader of the Texas Tophands, the hottest Western Swing dance band in South Texas, but Easy didn’t have any work to offer.
“Well, then, who’s the second-most popular band in San Antonio?” Willie asked. Easy Adams’s answer took them to Al’s. “They wanted to know if they could sit in,” Dave Isbell, the bandleader, said. “I told them, ‘Come on.’ At the end of the night, I asked Holland if he wanted to join the band, because I was looking for a fiddle player. He said he wanted the job. Then the other guy came up to me and said, ‘We’re working together. We’d like to be together.’”
The band agreed to add Willie Nelson too and to give him a split of whatever money they made. Dave Isbell said Willie’s timing was good. “My lead guitar player was at Lackland AFB and got transferred to Germany. Willie stepped right on in.” Cosett Holland played fiddle, Johnny Bush played drums, Lucky Carajohn played piano, Carl Walker played steel, Frog Isbell played bass, and Dave Isbell led the band, much like Bud Fletcher led the Texans. Willie played lead guitar but never sang.
Willie moved Martha and his baby girl, De Lana, born in Hill County on November 11, 1953, into the back half of a rent house on Labor Street, just southeast of downtown San Antonio. Carl Walker lived with a woman in the front of the house. Cosett Holland slept on a cot in the dining room in between. When they weren’t playing dances, they were checking out other dances and the nightlife of San Antonio, which was not unlike the nightlife in West and Waco. “Same music, same people, only more places to play,” Willie said.
San Antonio was the biggest small town in Texas. Between its reputation as a trade center
Similar Books
