On October 17, 1974, Willie Nelson walked into a TV studio on the University of Texas at Austin campus, strapped on his guitar, and created a new city. The musician, 41 and without a gray hair on his head, was there to tape the pilot episode of a show called Austin City Limits in front of an intimate crowd of young hippies and rednecks, the types of people who enjoyed his music the most. Nobody knew it then, but this fledgling show would become the longest-running music TV program of all time, and Willie and his fans would change country music—and Austin—forever.
On Thursday Willie played Austin City Limits again, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of that first performance—and his status as an American hero. This time the crowd was bigger—some 3,500 sat and stood on the sprawling lawn at the Long Center in downtown Austin to see him perform. And it wasn’t just hippies and rednecks this time; there were families with children, slackers and techies, teens wearing red Willie bandannas, and old folks with silver hair.
As Willie sang his set opener “Whiskey River,” I looked beyond the stage at Austin’s dazzling, supercharged skyline that was unimaginable five decades ago. Willie’s voice was froggy but it got better the more he sang, and by the time he got to “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” the whole crowd was singing with him. They swayed gently to “Funny How Time Slips Away” and some wiped away tears during “Always on My Mind.” Through a raucous “On the Road Again,” everyone clapped and sang, and it was like all of Austin itself was following along.
Willie built this city—not the coffee shops, running trails, skyscrapers, and tech headquarters. But when he moved to sleepy Austin in 1972 and began performing at places like the Armadillo World Headquarters, bringing together the long-haired and the short, the Buddhist and the Baptist, he helped turn the Texas capital into an urban playground for artists, musicians, music lovers, and writers who wanted to join him in a way of life. Austin became a magnet. This city was different, its red-headed spiritual leader demonstrated. You could do your own thing there. You could have fun. Austin City Limits, which would broadcast the city’s vibes to the rest of the country, played a huge part in letting the world know what it was about. By 2002, when the name Austin City Limits was also being used for what would become one of the most popular music festivals in the world, it seemed like every developer and venture capitalist was following the crowd to Austin. No one person was more responsible for the city’s phenomenal change than a pot-smoking country artist who was determined to sing and play his guitar at whatever cost.
He did it again last night at Austin City Limits, his nineteenth time on the show. Willie is a very different man now—frail, stooped with age, his voice cracked, his lungs wracked with emphysema. But he is still the same performer, determined to sing and play his guitar—and connect with his audience. His band played songs Willie has played thousands of times, and the show was like many of the past twenty years, with the set following a familiar pattern. The fans didn’t care; they came for the ritual as much as the music—and to be in the same space as this remarkable person one more time. After Kris Kristofferson’s recent death, Willie has become, in the words of one of his recent songs, the “Last Man Standing.”
In 1974 Willie wasn’t a superstar. He was a guy who’d fled Nashville and the country music establishment to come home to Texas, a long-haired songwriter who had recently released a concept album about a failed marriage called Phases and Stages. He had quit drinking whiskey and started smoking marijuana and was reading poems by Khalil Gibran. When he was asked to be on the pilot for a live-music TV show that had as much chance of success as any other mid-seventies hippie dream, he said, “Why not?”
Willie might have been busy reinventing himself, but even back then he never strayed from a core belief: onstage he was going to forge an emotional connection with his audience. At the start of every show, he would lock eyes with someone in the crowd—to sing to them and share the magic of the music, which he saw as a wave flowing from him and his band outward and then coming back. As much as Willie’s audience loved him, he loved his audience even more.
The original Austin City Limits stage was a perfect place for this. The set had been designed with short bleachers along the back and sides of the stage so members of the audience—who also sat on the floor in front—would always be in any shot. So when Willie, in an untucked denim shirt with embroidered thunderbirds over his chest, approached the microphone and began singing his opening number “Whiskey River,” he gazed around at the young people surrounding him, their faces smiling, their hands clapping, their bodies dancing in their seats. He looked as if he couldn’t believe it. Willie had played plenty of honky-tonks, serenading drunks and sullen cowboys, over the years; here he was surrounded by people who clearly loved his music.
For the next hour, his eyes twinkling, Willie gave one of his great performances, singing with full voice, trading riffs with guitarist Jody Payne, nodding at sister Bobbie when it was her turn to solo. He was in total control of the Family band, which had been playing together for a year. They were a tight, disciplined gang of long-hairs who listened to each other, harmonized beautifully, and churned out a lurching, spiritual country music that could turn frenetic, as on “Bloody Mary Morning.” As Willie’s bandmates circled him, playing at breakneck speed, he somehow seemed to slow down time as he riffed and soloed.
Willie was all too happy to let the others grab the spotlight. Payne sang “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother,” and Bee Spears took the lead on “Okie From Muskogee.” During “Nelson Family Jam,” a five-minute riff on “What’d I Say?” by Ray Charles, drummer Paul English (wearing his trademark black cape with red lining) played a two-minute drum solo that ended with a burst of feedback from Willie’s guitar.
Watching that show now is like looking into a time machine. You see a lot of blue jeans and wire-rimmed glasses. There is no gray hair anywhere—on the stage or in the audience—as if Austin itself is twentysomething years old, bathed in a palette of yellow, brown, and golden hues of the 1970s. The camerawork is intimate, with close-ups of Spears singing, Payne playing guitar, and Bobbie soloing. You can see crinkles around Willie’s eyes as he peered into the audience, feeding off his fans’ enthusiasm. It’s just Willie and his guitar during “A Song for You,” and audience members are quiet, almost worshipful. On “Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer),” they cheer raucously. “All right, all right, all right,” Willie says impishly.
At the end—after rapidly detuning their guitars in the final moments of the last song so they couldn’t play another—Willie jumps off stage and starts talking to some fans in the front rows. It was something he did a lot back then.
Willie doesn’t do that anymore, not after COVID, not after reaching this late stage of his life. But he still plays, he still adds to his legend—the man who built a city and refused to quit doing what he loved. In fact, last night he did things that no one had ever heard before. On “Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer),” he sang like a jazz singer from another planet, way off the beat, hugging the melody and then setting it on fire. On “Still Is Still Moving to Me” he played a frantic solo that clanged out of time (making weird bong noises), waited for the band to catch up, and then shot ahead. He played a new song called “Last Leaf” from his next album, his 153rd, which will be released November 1.
Willie is happiest when he is playing music—on his bus, with his friends, in the studio, or onstage in front of thousands of fans in the heart of Austin. He’s still drawing people to this city, still leading by example, and still preaching his message: Do what you love for as long as you can.
