Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band by Willie Nelson and Bobbie Nelson.
This is a dual autobiography of two members of a very well-known American music family, although most of us are more familiar with Willie than with his sister, Bobbie. To say that their actual lives mimicked an over-the-top country and western song lament would be a severe understatement. Much of the time, reading parts of the book is like looking at a train derailment in slow motion. You know that bad stuff is going to happen.
The Nelson kids lost their parents while very young. Neither mom or dad wanted children so they abandoned Bobbie and Willie early. Dad and mom left on the same day, when Bobbie was three and Willie was six-months old. Dad, who had a serious drinking problem, took off with his girlfriend, while their mother just left to get away. Their father, Ira, stayed pretty much out of the picture, but their mother, Myrle, dropped by every year or two to see the kids, visits that were treasured by the little Nelsons.
Bobbie was old enough to have been traumatized by seeing her parents abandon her at a very young age. Willie was so young that by the time he realized that his parents were gone for good, his grandparents had settled into doing a good job raising the waifs and the home environment was supportive.
Alfred, a blacksmith, and Nancy Nelson, their paternal grandparents, raised the kids in Abbott, Texas, a town of 400 people in the Hill Country between Waco and Dallas. Mama and Daddy Nelson were very religious but they gave the kids enough freedom to not be stifled. Willie and Bobbie got their musical starts singing and playing instruments in the church choir. The grandparents each were fine musicians, and Bobbie maintained that music and love were the foundation of the family.
Bobbie learned how to play piano from Bertha, the church music director. Daddy Nelson would take the kids around Texas to hear various gospel choir competitions, something everyone looked forward to. At one of these shows, Grandpa put Bobbie up on the stage to sing in the audience participation part of the show and she nailed it, her first public performance. After that, Daddy Nelson bought a piano for Bobbie, and he got a guitar for Willie and taught him how to play it.
Since this book reads like a country song, in 1939, Daddy Nelson got pneumonia and died. Bobbie was 8 and Willie was 6. Without steady income from his blacksmith shop, state officials moved in to take the kids away from their grandmother. She made a strong case to the authorities that she could make a living selling eggs from their chicken farm and giving music lessons, and she carried the day. She did come through on her promise. While the Nelsons were not comfortable, they were not needy. She took care of them and the kids went out and worked in the fields to supplement her income.
Willie was an indifferent student but a good athlete and a guy who liked to get into all sorts of mischief with his friends. He, like his peers back then, started smoking really early and kept it up for much of his life. Bobbie was much better behaved and just kept getting better at her music.
World War II came and scared the kids at first. Bobbie thought that any plane overhead would drop bombs. Willie wanted to go off to fight, but, at nine years old he didn’t quite qualify for the service. Willie had an interesting take on the times: "The forties were a heroic decade with a clear line between good and evil. The American story seemed simple still. With the advent of the Cold War and generational divides, the fifties and sixties would complicate that story. But as a product of the forties, I saw the world in basic terms. We were on the right side of history."
After the war, Bobbie started getting paid a little money for her performing. She also bought a typewriter so that she could learn a skill, and she liked the idea of mastering another keyboard. Willie took up singing but wasn’t very good.
Willie, although younger, was ahead of Bobbie in the dating department. As he put it, “I got along great with members of the opposite sex until I started marrying them.” He figured out that girls were attracted to musicians so he practiced hard and got better at his craft.
When Bobbie was 16, she met Bud Fletcher at a church revival. They met in April of 1947 and married in August. Bobbie continued to go to school after her marriage and graduated.
Willie joined a polka band before he was a teenager. His church-going grandmother wasn’t happy that her grandson was playing where people were dancing but the money he kept giving her from his gigs calmed her down.
Bud organized a band, cleverly named “Bud Fletcher and the Texans.” Bud had very little musical talent - he could fake it on the drums - but he was a good front man who could get paying jobs. He also recognized that Willie and Bobbie had talent. Bobbie played a great piano, something other bands didn’t have. He entered them into a talent show at a local radio station and they won. Besides getting more work, they also got a radio show. They also developed enough credibility to promote shows featuring real country music stars which further enhanced their fame.
The band stayed together for five years, a pretty long run.
When someone says “Deep down, he was a good man,” watch out. That’s what Bobby said about Bud as the marriage rolled on. Bud had a serious drinking problem which got Willie into hitting the sauce, although not to any serious extent. Bud became violent when he drank.
Bobbie and Bud had a baby boy, Randy, when she was 18 in 1950. Over the next three years, they had two more sons, Michael and Freddy. As is the case in a country song, her husband was drinking more and more as the kids came along. He disappeared for long stretches of time, but Mama Nelson helped keep the family together.
Willie enlisted in the Air Force as the Korean War was heating up. When Willie was in boot camp outside of San Antonio, he became aware of different musical genres in local clubs. That experience extended his musical reach. Willie ended up hurting his back in the service and ended up getting a medical discharge, but serving his country ended up helping his career.
Willie flipped out over a woman named Mary and got her pregnant. Of course, she already had a serious boyfriend so she gave the kid up for adoption and left Willie, who was heartbroken for the first, but certainly not the last, time.
Willie was next smitten by Martha Jewel, a carhop in a halter top at a burger joint. She was 16, so Willie added two years to her age and they got married. After living at home in Abbott for a while, Willie and Martha decided to go visit his birth mother in Eugene, Oregon. That didn’t last, and soon they went back to Texas where Willie enrolled in Baylor University and “majored in dominoes,” not a recognized discipline. Soon he left school and headed to San Antonio where their daughter, Lana, was born. The music scene there was hopping. Willie continued to work on his music and also got a job as a radio DJ. While he was good at spinning records, he wasn’t very good at being a faithful husband and the marriage went south.
By 1954, Bobbie’s husband, Bud, was completely out of the picture so naturally his parents, well connected in local politics, took custody of Bobbie’s three children, which devastated her. She hadn’t done anything wrong but her wealthy in-laws thought that she wasn’t quite good enough to raise their grandchildren. Bobbie protested and got a hearing but she lost.
Bobbie had to be able to prove to the judge that she could support her kids, but performing in bars was a no-no for a woman in Texas in the 1950s. She moved to Fort Worth with Willie and went to business school while she worked as a receptionist at a TV repair shop. She ended up meeting a new man, Paul Tracy, and they hit it off. Paul of course had a drinking problem. Bobbie had a marriage problem - she was still married to Bud who had left the state.
Willie continued to perform, fool around with women, and teach bible class at the local Baptist church. He was a swirl of contradictions. Eventually the minister demanded that Willie either choose to perform in dens of sin or to teach at the church. He chose the music.
Willie and Martha next moved to Portland, OR, where his mother was living. They settled in there. Willie performed his music and also was a DJ at a country record station. The couple had their second child there, a daughter, Susan.
Meanwhile, Bobbie finished two years at business school and got a job at a major appliance company that also sold pianos and organs. She started off as a secretary but once her boss figured out she could play the Hammond B3 organ, she switched keyboards and demonstrated what the instrument could do and gave lessons to interested customers. She got a nice raise and rented a little house. Right about then, her in-laws got sick of raising her three kids and gave them back to her. She was very happy.
Willie also caught a good break. He was still in Portland in 1957 as Elvis Presley was hitting the airwaves. By chance, Mae Axton, a woman who worked for Colonel Parker, Elvis's promoter, was in town promoting a country and western star tour. She met Willie at the radio station and he convinced her to listen to a rough demo he had made of a song he wrote, Family Bible. Mae loved it and encouraged Willie to go back to Texas to work on his craft since Portland was hardly a hot music scene. Willie went back to Fort Worth where Bobbie was raising her kids.
Bobbie’s errant husband, Bud, showed up and wanted a divorce. At first Bobbie said no - she still expected him to quit drinking and womanizing and come back to her - but she did sign the papers. She then married Paul, her companion for the past few years, but a man she did not love. The kids needed a father, she figured. Again, her life was like a C&W song or a full album.
Willie and Martha had their third kid, a boy, but gigs were few and far between so Willie took to selling encyclopedias and vacuum cleaners door-to-door. He was very successful and made a lot of money but felt guilty because his customers were poor and really couldn't afford to buy his wares.
Bobbie continued to get promoted by her company and also did Hammond organ demonstrations at trade shows and conferences all over the region. She was making a good living and she was performing again. Willie’s career in Fort Worth wasn’t quite as successful. He could only get sporadic, low-paying gigs, and he had to take a lot of menial jobs to support his family. It was time to move to Houston.
One of Willie Nelson’s problems in getting noticed in the 1950s music scene was that his style really wasn’t traditional country. He blended several genres - country, blues, a little jazz, gospel - at a time when coloring outside of the lines was discouraged. Elvis was the first big star to blend elements of all sorts of music, including Black, roots, and rhythm and blues, into rock and roll.
Despite having limited success performing, Willie wrote a lot of songs, including Crazy, The Party’s Over, Funny How Time Slips Away, and Family Bible, all of which would become big hits. Bobbie recognized how good his songs were and, despite being broke and a bit down in Houston, Willie had finally found the gateway to success – song writing. He moved to Nashville – the place where songs were made into hits – and did a variety of odd jobs until he made enough money to have Martha and the kids follow him. She went to work in restaurants and he scratched out a living. He was drinking too much and womanizing, but they were getting through the day. Finally, Willie met a guy who recognized his talent and hired him to work writing songs with a publishing house at a decent weekly wage. Things were starting to turn around.
One of the songs Willie wrote was Hello, Walls, a lament about losing your woman who walked away. Nelson thought it was stupid; his boss saw it as a huge hit which it became when sung by Faron Young. Willie got a lot of money in royalty checks, which he still gets today. Some of the songs Willie had written on his own became hits - especially Crazy by Patsy Cline, Night Life with Billy Walker, and Funny How Time Slips Away by Ray Price. Willie still gets residual fees from those also.
One casualty of the Nashville years was his marriage. Martha finally came to the end of the road with Willie and divorced him. Willie had been fooling around with Shirley Collie, a singer and the wife of one of his friends, and they got married in 1963.
Bobbie was now playing the organ at a chain of local Mexican restaurants, which paid better and led her to meet the next man in her life, Jesse, a waiter. Bobbie was married to Paul but having a passionate affair with Jesse, who was Mexican. Because inter-racial relationships were discouraged and Bobbie was married, things had to stay secret here. In keeping with the country song theme of Bobbie’s life, another wrinkle was that of course Jesse had a wife and kids back in Mexico.
Willie and Shirley wanted to go back to Nashville to expand their careers. Willie was making good money and bought Ridgetop, a farm north of Nashville. Eventually, the farm became the Nelson family compound with lots of relatives and ex-wives moving in. Willie’s ex-wife, Martha, was off gallivanting with her third husband and didn't want the kids, so she dropped them off at Ridgetop. She and her hubby eventually came back to live there along with Willie’s long-gone father, Ira, and his wife, and an assortment of half-brothers and other tangential Nelson family members. Willie’s mother and her current husband also moved in. The clan would be joined by various pop music stars like Roger Miller, Ray Price or Mel Tillis who would play poker with Willie long into the night.
Bobbie’s husband, Paul, had figured out that she had a boyfriend. Paul was threatening to kill her. Time to leave Fort Worth and sneak into Austin, away from Paul. Eventually he tracked her down while she and the kids were visiting their grandparents. He tried to kill her, at which point the kids started to scream and chased him away. The kids stayed with the grandparents for that summer. Bobbie got work playing piano at a new hotel in Austin. Meanwhile, she was still in love with Jesse and couldn't break it off so she came up with a plan: marry someone else to get rid of Jesse. In 1967 she met Bud Smith, an amateur musician who was 12 years younger. He’ll do, she thought. So, they got married just to deal with the Jesse problem. Jesse of course died a few months later and took care of the problem in his own way.
Willie finally got on the Grand Ole Opry, but only as a session player in the band on stage. He soon got tired of that and went to other venues but realized that the Nashville Sound wasn’t the Willie Sound. He met Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings, two guys who also didn’t fit in with the traditional country scene. This was the beginning of what would become Outlaw Country, which was no doubt helped by the fact that Merle had actually served time in San Quentin Prison.
It was 1966 and Willie was straying again. His wife, Shirley, noticed a bill from a Houston hospital for childbirth. She knew she hadn’t been pregnant. It turned out that Willie’s latest love, Connie Koepke, had given birth to Willie’s new daughter, Paula. Willie and Connie had been an item for years. Willie was pretty good at “livin’ on the cheatin’ side of town,” as would be the lyric in a country song. Shirley left in a huff and eventually got divorced, but she and Willie ended up being pretty good friends.
In 1969, Bob Dylan influenced country with his Nashville Skyline album, which featured the iconic Girl from the North Country. Willie was exploring new types of songs like Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now and James Taylor’s Fire and Rain, which were not country. He also was still not having much success as a breakout star.
Bobbie moved to Nashville in the early 1970s. She got work playing at a fancy restaurant and rented a nice place. Her three sons were doing well, and she was still in a loveless marriage to young Bud Smith. Around Christmas of that year, Willie’s house at Ridgetop burned down. He did save his favorite guitar (another country song lyric) but the place was wiped out. Time to go back to Texas, this time to Bandera, known as the Cowboy Capital of the World, and it is. We had a Cooper family reunion there.
Bobbie finally left Bud and naturally ended up falling for her divorce lawyer, Joel. At least she didn’t marry him. Perhaps at age 38 she was maturing.
Willie was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day and drinking way too much so he decided to confine his vices to marijuana. Bandera is beautiful and Willie went out and read all sorts of new age and classic books on life. He tried to record a concept album like the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper but it was a bust.
Willie then moved to the emerging hot spot, Austin, with its hippie village with a growing music presence. Willie did well on stage and developed a solid reputation as a cutting-edge act. He got a phone call from record producer Jerry Wexler who wanted him to record in New York City. Willie hire his own band and record his songs in a professional setting. He brought Bobbie in to the recording sessions as the piano player. After 30 years, they were performing together again. He also assembled a pretty good crew. Bobbie had to learn how to play as part of a band as opposed to the solo work she had done all of her life. She also had to loosen up a bit and become less formal in terms of dress and behavior so that she better matched the chemistry of the band, which she did.
Besides doing studio work, the band performed all over, including regular sets in prestigious Austin venues.
Willie’s next move was to try to put on a mini-Woodstock at Dripping Springs, TX, outside of Austin. He and musician buddy Leon Russell organized it and were worried that no one would show up. It was a big success and has become an annual must-see event. The promotion plan was simple. Willie would bring in the Rednecks and Leon was responsible for the Hippies. It worked and that show - Willie’s Picnic - continues to this day.
After a lot of success with Atlantic records, Willie switched to Columbia and recorded Red Headed Stranger in a small studio in Garland, TX. It was a huge hit and went gold. Many others followed. In 1978 Willie and Booker T (without the MG’s) recorded Stardust, a compilation of classic songs. Bobbie, who knew the American songbook cold, was critical to making it a success. The album went to Number 1 and earned a Grammy for Willie. He had made it as a pop icon. Willie acted in a bunch of movies and continued to crank out albums. Bobbie continued to contribute.
In 1978 their father, who hadn’t been around much early in their lives, died. A year later Mama Nelson, who raised them, passed away. In 1983, their birth mother died.
Willie became involved in Farm Aid in the 1980s. He also became involved with another woman and his marriage to Connie dissolved. He married Annie and, 34 years later, they are still married. Willie finally grew up a bit.
Bobbie had taken up with a new beau in the 1970s. She stayed with Jack Fletcher (no relation to her first husband, Bud Fletcher) for 15 years without getting married. He managed to take a lot of her money. He also was controlling and mean, but Bobbie seemed stuck.
Her sons seemed to be doing well. Michael had finished law school and become an entertainment lawyer. He also got AIDS and died in 1989 at age 34. A few months later her son, Randy, who had a history of mental illness, got in a fatal car accident. In six months, Bobbie had lost two of her sons. She also got it together to dump Jack who was not supportive to her at all through her troubles.
In 1991, Willie lost his son, Billy, in a car accident. That was a rough two years for Bobbie and Willie Nelson.
From 1985 to 1995, the pop group, The Highwaymen, toured the country. Willie, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson played to sold-out shows everywhere.
Today, Willie continues to make albums. His latest is <em>That’s Life,</em> a compilation of show tunes and standards that certainly aren’t country but are compelling. He and Bobbie continue to work together and make music and do concerts.
The last few chapters of the book are about how Willie and Bobbie have worked on healing each other. It’s spiritual. Their lives have been challenging but they looked out for each other all along the way. Bobbie has forgiven those who hurt her, and she still looks at the good that came out of even her bad relationships. Willie isn’t quite as mellow, but he’s made peace with his life and reached out to people he hurt to try to make amends. It seems to have worked.
These are the final words of the book from Willie: "I think back to the beginning. Different time. Different world. But is it? Isn’t Bobbie just a little girl who fell in love with the sound of an organ and a piano? Aren’t I just a little boy who fell in love with the sound of a guitar? The girl grew up to become a woman. The boy became a man. They tripped and triumphed and suffered and survived. But the essentials never changed."
The girl loved music.
The boy loved music.
And music loved them.
Music provided and protected and still provides and protects them as the bus roars down the highway.
Soon the people will arrive at the show.
Soon the music will start.
Bob’s Take
You can’t make this stuff up. If you wrote a movie script based on Willie and Bobbie’s lives, no one would take it seriously. Too much weird stuff kept happening, even for a country song. But these things happened.
The role of trauma in their lives. Willie and Bobbie were abandoned at a very early age, a classic adverse childhood experience. I’ve done a fair amount of professional work on the impact of trauma on people, and a lot of what Willie and Bobbie went through can be explained by having been kicked away by their parents so early. One lasting problem is that you don’t develop your upper brain – the part that makes rational decisions – well enough to stop you from making bad decisions with your lower, more primitive brain. Bobbie, who, at three, was old enough to have been shattered by being abandoned, consistently made very poor choices concerning the men in her life. Today, she might have been able to receive therapy to help her develop the coping and decision-making skills needed to deal with the trauma.
They might be geniuses. Bobbie was a savant at the piano and Willie had a gift for writing great songs even as a very young man. He also developed a new genre of country music that went way beyond crossover. It’s almost Americana. It is fair to say that Willie’s blended vocal stylings teed up the success of many contemporary crossover artists like Garth Brooks and Toby Keith.
Willie was prolific. He recorded 95 studio and 13 live albums and is still recording new material and doing concerts.
They liked to be in relationships. Bobbie had three husbands and two additional long-term relationships. Willie had four wives.
There was a lot of tragedy in their lives. Bobbie had her sons given to her no-good husband’s parents for no real reason, before getting them back. Two of her sons (Michael and Randy) died young. Willie lost his son, Billy. Two of Bobbie’s long-term relationships died young - Bud Fletcher (a husband) and John Fletcher (not her husband). Grandad Nelson died at a relatively young age.
They have relied on music and faith and family to get through and often those all merged. Their lives really have come right out of a country song’s lyrics.
