Willie Nelson Wrote HITS for Everyone but Himself

He wrote smash hits for everyone else while Nashville decided he could not sing.

Willie Nelson grew up in tiny Abbott, Texas, picking cotton during the Depression.

Raised by his grandparents, he was writing songs and playing guitar before he was ten.

In the early sixties, his songs became huge hits, sung by other, bigger stars.

Crazy became a country standard, but almost nobody wanted to hear Willie sing it himself.

His relaxed, behind-the-beat phrasing baffled the polished Nashville machine.

Then his house burned down, and he took it as a sign to start over.

He moved back to Texas, grew out his hair, and stopped following anyone's rules.

He fused country with rock and blues and helped invent outlaw country.

He became an American icon, the bearded outlaw who finally sang his own songs.

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