Willie Nelson, CCR return to the Valley

He’s one of the original outlaws of country music. He’s known as the Red Headed Stranger. And some refer to him as the Ambassador to Weedville. Willie Nelson has earned plenty of nicknames and notoriety over the past five decades.

Perhaps the biggest name in Texas music, Willie returns to the Rio Grande Valley this weekend on Saturday, Feb. 27, for a performance at Las Palmas Rack Park in Mission.

Tickets are $35 general admission and are available at Cavendar’s Western Outfitter stores in McAllen and Brownsville, and online at www.ez-tixx.com.

Though he rose to fame in the 1970s, his songwriting career began a decade earlier. Willie penned hits for artists such as Patsy Cline (“Crazy”), Faron Young (“These Walls”) and Billy Walker (“Funny How Time Slips Away”).

Ironically, it was a song he didn’t write – Roy Acuff’s “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain” – that jump-started his career and flung him head-first into stardom.

But Willie wasn’t going to conform to what Nashville wanted him to be – a polished, commercial country artist. So along with Waylon Jennings, Willie started the “outlaw country movement,” rebelling against the pop-influenced country that Nashville was taking a liking to. They stuck to their honky tonk roots and created sort of a hardcore country sound. Songs like “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” (a duet by Willie and Waylon) and “Luchenbach, Texas” (Willie sings the last refrain) appealed to a wider audience and helped prove to Nashville that outlaw country was a viable genre.

Even when he was a star, Willie never played it safe musically. Instead, he borrowed from a wide variety of styles, including traditional pop, Western swing, jazz, traditional country, cowboy songs, honky tonk, rock & roll, folk, and the blues, creating a distinctive, elastic hybrid.

Nelson remained at the top of the country charts until the mid-80s, when his lifestyle – which had always been close to the outlaw clichés with which his music flirted – began to spiral out of control, culminating in an infamous battle with the IRS in the late ‘80s.

During the 90s, Nelson’s sales never reached the heights that he had experienced a decade earlier, but he remained a vital icon in country music, having greatly influenced the new country, new traditionalist, and alternative country movements of the 80s and 90s as well as leaving behind a legacy of classic songs and recordings.

Willie has remained a prolific recording artist who still enjoys taking his music on the road. Willie has woven his signature sound from country, rock, jazz, folk, swing and pop. Sometimes his voice and music are so powerful that you can hear a song like “Georgia on My Mind” echoing in your head when you recall a favorite memory.

Cross Canadian Ragweed, another country favorite, will open for Nelson. This Oklahoma band has released 10 albums and they’re known for their top country hits Soul Gravy, Garage, and Mission California.