While Nelson never overtly equates cowboys with selfish jerks in this bittersweet ballad, it’s easy to read between the lines. Shooter Jennings once lamented in song that “your heroes turn out to be assholes,” but he could have easily used “cowboys” as a synonym for the coarse slur. This list was originally published in April 2016. “I thought it was the funniest thing in the world. “All of a sudden, we were outlaws,” Nelson told Rolling Stone in 2014, reflecting on the country music rebellion he was credited with launching.

Whether he was crooning Countrypolitan fare in the Sixties - his 1962 debut album …And Then I Wrote is remarkable for its wealth of enduring songs - or busting down doors with Waylon Jennings in the Seventies, Nelson was always making waves with that unmistakable voice. It’s impossible to hear a Willie Nelson performance and not identify it as such. The Texas native has written some of music’s most important titles, from “Crazy,” made famous by Patsy Cline, to “Funny How Times Slips Away,” covered by Elvis Presley.Īnd then there are the songs with which he has become synonymous, thanks to his charmingly eccentric vocal delivery. But the fact is that Nelson’s own works deserve a volume or two. When Willie Nelson released his 2016 tribute album to the Gershwin brothers, he was showing his reverence for the Great American Songbook.

Willie nelson at the graton casino