On Tuesday, Willie Nelson will turn eighty years old. If you happen to have caught him live lately, that might take you by surprise. Willie won’t be the first touring octogenarian — Ralph Stanley’s still on the road at 86; Chuck Berry, who is the same age, is still banging around St. Louis; and Yoko [...]

Dan “Bee” Spears was all of nineteen years old when he joined Willie Nelson’s Family Band as a bassist, a post he would hold until his death in December 2011. Marshall Grant’s tubthumping time in the Tennessee Two notwithstanding, country music bassists tend not to draw attention to themselves. Given Willie Nelson’s fast and loose [...]

On To Willie, Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck pays tribute to the Red Headed Stranger by covering eleven of his favorite Nelson songs, from the better-known “The Party’s Over” to the ultra-obscure “Heartaches of a Fool”. While the resulting album is a stunner, what’s perhaps even more impressive is the fact that Houck was able to whittle [...]