‘The Outlaw’ begins with Willie Nelson extolling the virtues of choosing happiness over all other options, and one of the best things about Thomson’s fine biography of the country legend is that, while it never judges its subect, it presents, both musically and personally, the butcher’s bill for such an ethos. Starting with cycles of parental abondonment Nelson would later mimic and which would inform some of his best songs, it goes on to chart an uneasy rise from the honkytonks and ‘skull orchards’ of Texas through Nashville’s intital rejection of him to eventual superstardom.
Nelson’s apparent disinterest in his offspring, idiosyncratic approach to marriage and dismaying lack of musical quality control are given ample consideration amid the author’s obvious regard for his subject, to mention unstinting praise and admiration from his peers.
Of course, money is the elephant in the room. Thomson tries manfully to ascertain the facts behind the tax problems that left Nelson with a bill for millions, but the waters here are muddy and wide. Mismanagment at all levels seems to be at the root. That, through it all, Nelson’s only real concern should be for his guitar, ‘Trigger’, sheds light not just on the kind of man who could allow such a fate to befall him, but one who could survive it.
Now that Nelson has all but given up songwriting in favour of almost constant touring, there is a slight feeling of ‘what could have been’ about his career. It’s an opinion Nelson himself might well indulge – with the calm of a Zen icon – before packing up and moving on down the road.
The dude abides.
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