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May 2023
In This Issue
- An American Musical Treasure at 90
- Gordon Lightfoot - Rest in Peace
- SHM students performing in NYC and Atlanta
- Video: Student Guitar-building Project
- Video: Up close and personal with Willie's famous guitar
Student Updates
I'm so very proud of all the students I've taught in 19 years of teaching in SE Aurora. Read on for some updates on some students who've been part of the Smoky Hill Music family for many years.
Willie Nelson
A true American treasure, and one of my musical heroes, country music legend Willie Nelson turned 90 this past weekend at a star-studded birthday bash. My article below will look at his amazing life and incredible career. Let's go to Luckenbach, Texas with Waylon and Willie and the boys...
SHM Students on the move!
Hot Jazz in Hot 'Lanta
When he's not studying hard to complete his engineering degree at Georgia Tech, long-time SHM student Jake Williams is writing and performing jazz music with a group of musicians in Atlanta. Their group is called "Letters from the Basement."
Jake began his music education at Smoky Hill Music when he was just 8 or 9 years old. He has performed in several bands, including our own Smoky Hill Music All-Star rock band.
Jake is an incredibly bright and gifted young man. He is a 2021 graduate of Cherokee Trail High School. For his student project at CTHS he built a CNC machine, which he then programmed to carve the body and neck for an electric guitar! He also built a second guitar for his dad, another SHM guitar student. That's the one shown in the photo. see the videos below of his project in action
Jake is a highly talented guitarist. I really enjoy listening to his playing. He always impresses me with his clever improvisational solo phrasing and chord choices,
He also built the computer I use every day for my online zoom lessons.
Jake found his current bandmates on Craigslist. They perform all original material. The jazz group features keyboards, bass, drums, vocals, flute, and Jake on electric guitar.
They have performed many gigs at Atlanta venues. Jake will spend his summer this year in Nashville, where he has an internship lined up with General Motors.
I am very proud of Jake, and I am excited about the bright future he has in store thanks to his amazing talent and hard work!
NYC Performances
A couple months ago I told you here about our long-time Smoky Hill Music student and dear friend Kellen Kennedy, and her recent move to New York City.
Kellen is working at a company doing cutting-edge stem cell research. And already she is doing public performances singing and playing guitar in the Big Apple.
Kellen has already performed several times at Manero's of Mulberry, a restaurant Little Italy, playing and singing her original songs! I've helped Kellen record some of her songs over the years. She has a beautiful singing voice, and she writes thoughtful lyrics and sweet melodies.
Her favorite songwriters include the late Texas cowboy poet Townes Van Zant, and the legendary Joni Mitchell, queen of the 1960's Laurel Canyon music scene.
Kellen is a 2017 graduate of Cherokee Trail High School. She has been one of my bright, shining students ever since she was a young girl. She is a multi-talented singer, songwriter, guitarist, and artist. In her senior year she led an all-girl rock band called "Crop Circles."
She performed for several years with the student a cappella group at CU Boulder, and she composed vocal arrangements for the group.
Kellen is also quite interested in learning and playing jazz music, and has plans to check out the jazz clubs in Greenwich Village.
Gordon Lightfoot 1938-2023
Legend of the 70's singer-songwriter era
Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot died Monday May 1, at age 84. He was widely known and admired for songs such as "If You Could Read My Mind," Carefree Highway," "Sundown," and the epic true tale "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
The Canadian musician gained international acclaim and success with his finely crafted folk-rock songs, poetic storytelling, rich baritone voice, and masterful guitar playing.
He was Bob Dylan's favorite songwriter, so that tells you something about the quality of his work. Dylan inducted Lightfoot into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986.
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is an epic true story in the historical tradition of tragic folk ballads. It tells the story of the giant ore carrier ship that sank in a storm on Lake Superior in November 1975, killing all 29 men on board.
As popular music tastes and radio trends changed dramatically in the late 70's and the singer-songwriter era drew to a close, Lightfoot's song about the sinking ship would be his last major hit in the U.S.
He had been scheduled to begin a US tour this year. Those dates were cancelled in early April due to health reasons. I was lucky enough to see Gordon Lightfoot in concert when he performed at Earth Day show at Michigan State University in 1990.
"I can't think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don't like. Every time I hear a song of his, it's like I wish it would last forever." - Bob Dylan
Willie Nelson
Country Music Icon Turns 90, Still On the Road
Mention Willie Nelson to just about anyone and these are things that immediately come to mind: The beard. The braids. The bandana. The beat-up nylon-string guitar that he's played on more than 10,000 concerts. The iconic nasal Texas-twang. The unusual jazz-style vocal and guitar phrasing, always ahead of- or behind- the beat. That red-white-and-blue guitar strap.
The "jazz cigarettes" he famously enjoyed long before they were legal anywhere.
And most importantly, the MUSIC. With a music career that spans eight decades, there is a LOT of it.
Willie Nelson is an American treasure, and one of the most prolific songwriters of any generation, having written more than 330 songs. He has recorded more than 100 albums. He is an author, movie actor, and activist. He created the Farm Aid concert series in the 1980's to help struggling farmers, aided by fellow music legends John Mellencamp and Neil Young.
He has written a multitude of songs that are now "standards," part of the great American songbook, and many songs that were major hits for other Nashville artists, long before Willie himself became part of the fabric of our lives.
With musical soul-brother and fellow Texan Waylon Jennings, he released country music's FIRST million-selling album and started the Outlaw country music movement.
Willie was born April 29, 1933 in Texas. He and his sister Bobbie were raised by their grandparents during the Great Depression after being abandoned by their parents.
Willie wrote his first song at age 7. He joined a band three years later. Throughout high school he earned money performing in the honky-tonks and taverns of central Texas.
A short stint in the Air Force was followed by a couple years at Baylor. Willie quit college to focus on playing music, writing songs, and working as a radio disc jockey.
At one point before moving to Nashville, Willie was flat broke, and he sold the rights to one of his songs, "Family Bible," for just $50. It was recorded by singer Claude Gray, and became a Top Ten hit. But the record did not list Willie as the writer, because he had sold it.
Willie later said he didn't regret selling it, believing that since he'd already written one hit, he could write another.
In the late 50's he wrote the songs that would eventually become major hits for other artists, including the biggest of them all, "Crazy," sung by Patsy Cline.
"Crazy" is the most successful jukebox song of all time.
But Willie hit hard times on his arrival in Nashville in 1960, and for a while was unable to land a record deal. He first made his mark as a songwriter, scoring big hits with Faron Young (Hello Walls), Ray Price (Night Life), and Patsy Cline.
He eventually had some modest success as an artist, and he joined the Grand Ol' Opry in 1965.
But by the end of the decade he found Nashville too confining, and the money was drying up.
So in 1972 he moved back to Texas and began laying the foundations for a new music phenomenon that became the "Outlaw" movement...
Waylon & Willie
Meanwhile, back in Texas...
Willie returned to Texas, playing venues around Austin, and discovered that his music was still popular with the cowboys and the usual country music fans, but now there was an enthusiastic audience he hadn't expected: hippies and rockers.
Around this time he formed his "Family" band and recorded his album, "Shotgun Willie" featuring the rowdy "Whiskey River," a honky tonk classic that has been Willie's opening concert song for decades.
The "Family" band featured Willie's sister Bobbie Nelson on piano, his best friend Paul English on drums, and Mickey Raphael on harmonica. Bobbie and Paul would go on to perform with Willie for the rest of their lives. (Paul English died in 2020, Bobbie Nelson died in 2022.)
Mickey Raphael continues to perform alongside Willie at every show, as he has done for 50 years.
The diverse Austin music scene was exploding in the mid-seventies, and in 1974 Willie performed his set on the pilot episode of a new music television show called Austin City Limits. The show was later picked up by PBS, and is currently in it's 47th season.
Willie's 1974 concept album Red Headed Stranger launched his first #1 solo hit, "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain." Originally recorded by Roy Acuff in 1947, it was written by Acuff's publishing partner Fred Rose. (Me and my dad still play this song together in our living room jam sessions. It was my grandma's favorite song.)
Waylon Jennings gave the world his take on what would become the Outlaw country movement with his album Ladies Love Outlaws, and the hit song title track. He followed that with several more albums featuring his bare-bones honky tonk band arrangements featuring a heavy kick drum beat, Ralph Mooney on pedal steel guitar, and Waylon's snappy, phase-shifted electric guitar picking on his iconic black and white leather-covered Fender Telecaster.
The Outlaws
Honky Tonk Heroes
With Willie and Waylon now setting the template for this new style of country music popular with a very diverse audience, RCA put together a compilation album featuring the pair, along with Waylon's wife Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser.
The album was called "Wanted! The Outlaws."
It was country music's first-ever million-selling album, at a time when country music albums often only sold in the tens of thousands.
The album featured a song Waylon and Willie wrote together "Good Hearted Woman," as well as individual solo tracks, including Waylon's "Honky Tonk Heroes," and Willie's song "Me and Paul," about his road adventures with drummer Paul English.
(Willie also has written a book, "Me and Paul: Untold Tales of a Fabled Friendship".)
A follow-up album, "Waylon & Willie," further capitalized on the Outlaw movement, with the hit song "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys."
Waylon and Willie are two of my all-time favorite music heroes. I've been performing their music in every country band I've ever performed with, and their songs were on my own acoustic show set list.
In 1978, Willie changed direction completely and recorded "Stardust," an album of old pop standards, including "Blue Skies," "All of Me," and "Georgia on My Mind."
Many in the industry predicted it would tank his career.
Instead, it won him a Grammy and spent TEN years on the Billboard charts.
I saw Willie Nelson in concert in July, 1986 when he played a show at the State Fairgrounds. Willie Nelson in concert on a sunny summer day! God Bless America!
The Highwaymen
Country Music Supergroup
In the late 1980's my own personal musical Mount Rushmore went on tour in support of their second album, produced by Memphis music legend Chips Moman.
The Highwaymen was the ultimate country music super-group: Willie, Waylon, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson.
These were the men who embodied everything I loved about country music: the great storytelling songwriting, the cool guitar licks, the outlaw swagger, and the mythology of these larger-than-life icons. Johnny Cash had been my hero since I was 8 years old. My dad was the one who introduced me to his music, and I was instantly hooked on both of the prison albums, and an old Sun Records LP of Cash's early hits.
In 1989, I finally saw The Highwaymen in concert, TWICE in the same week! I have very treasured memories of that, walking up close to the stage to take some photos, and being just feet away from these living monuments of music that I had idolized since I was a boy.
I met Willie's daughter Paula Nelson when she performed at the Tailgate in Parker some years ago. She is also a DJ who hosts the Outlaw Country show on Sirius XM.
Sidebar: Willie Nelson and Pauline Reese
The Tailgate is also where we played a show with one of Willie's favorite singing partners, Pauline Reese. She has recorded and performed with Willie, and has played many of his big events like the annual picnics in Texas and twice at Farm Aid.
Pauline played her solo acoustic show, at a gig with my band at the Tailgate in 2014.
I joined her on stage for half of her set, accompanying her on guitar and on my Sho-Bud pedal steel.
Willie is right. She's great! I had fun playing music with her on stage.
2026 update: Willie Nelson is still on tour, and recently announced tour dates for 2026. He seems frail now and his iconic voice is sometimes a whisper. But he still opens his shows with Whiskey River. He is the last surviving Highwayman, following the 2024 death of Kris Kristofferson.
Kris had joined Johnny Cash's daughter Roseanne onstage at the Hollywood Bowl during Willie's 90th birthday party bash in 2023.
It was emotional moment as a frail-looking Kristofferson sang one of his hit songs with Roseanne.
A long list of music legends and newer artists performed and paid tribute to country music's eldest elder statesman. Keith Richards, Neil Young, George Strait, Sheryl Crow, Billy Strings, Chris Stapleton, Jamey Johnson, Lumineers, Dave Matthews, and many more performed.
Willie's 90th birthday concert was a two-day event: he was born on April 29th, but it got entered in the county birth records the next day and was listed as the 30th. So of course Willie and Family have to party for two days instead of one!
Willie will soon be 93, and on the road again.
So don't turn out the lights, the party's not over yet.
