Country Music Legend Willie Nelson
The recent 56th annual Grammy Awards saw country legends Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, along with younger vintage country star Blake Shelton, take to the stage to entertain the audience and millions of people watching online and on television – the majority of whom knew the words to every song. Among the tunes performed by the group were the classics Highwayman, Okie from Muskogee and Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.
Born on April 29, 1933, in Abbott, Texas, Willie Hugh Nelson and his older sister Bobbie were raised by their paternal grandparents who introduced them to music at a young age. His Grandfather bought him his first guitar and taught him some chords when he was six-years-old and he wrote his first song at the age of seven. While the rest of the family was picking cotton in the summer months, at thirteen years of age Nelson earned his keep by singing in taverns and dance halls, which he continued to do through high school. After a stint in the USAF and a few years at university where he studied agriculture, in 1956 Willie Nelson decided to pursue music as a career, which clearly turned out to be a good choice. As well as writing over three hundred songs and releasing more than sixty studio albums, Willie Nelson has made appearances in more than thirty television shows and films, with his acting debut being in the 1979 movie The Electric Horseman. His awards include the AMA Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting, along with numerous Grammy Awards, CMA Awards and CMT Awards, among others.
Certainly, Willie Nelson has enjoyed a long and successful music career and shows no signs of slowing down. In addition to performing at the 2014 Grammys, Nelson continues to tour and has been named in the lineup for the Buckle Up Music Festival set to take place on the banks of the Ohio River in Cincinnati on July 18-20.