Willie Nelson (Pt 1): A Shootout, a House Fire, and the Ballad of the Red-Headed Stranger

Summary

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DISGRACELAND – Willie Nelson (Pt 1): A Shootout, a House Fire, and the Ballad of the Red-Headed Stranger

Podcast Date: April 25, 2023
Host: Jake Brennan
Production: Double Elvis Productions

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Overview

This episode launches a two-part deep dive into the chaotic and dramatic early life of Willie Nelson, revealing the messier, lesser-known chapters of his rise from struggling songwriter to outlaw country legend. Jake Brennan, with his signature dramatic narrative style, explores Nelson’s brawls, marital collapses, brushes with death, and the iconic events that forged him—including a shootout, a devastating house fire, and the genesis of the Red-Headed Stranger persona.

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Main Themes & Purpose

• Peeling back the myth: Brennan moves beyond sanitized biopics and official narratives to uncover the dark, dangerous, and true-crime-tinged misadventures that shaped Willie Nelson.
• Outlaw spirit: The episode traces Nelson’s journey as an outsider—always marching to his own beat musically and personally—while entangling with violence, addiction, and family turmoil.
• Transformation and survival: Chronicling Nelson’s lowest points emphasizes how personal crises, shootouts, and literal fire forced his transformation and ultimately inspired his artistry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Struggles and Road to Nashville

[03:05 – 10:25]

• Willie Nelson, at 27, arrived in Nashville full of hope but faced immediate rejection:
  • “Willie’s songs were too weird. The way he sang, behind or ahead of the beat, it was some weird jazz shit. Just wasn’t country. Sure as hell wasn’t the Nashville sound.” (Jake Brennan, 06:30)
• Humiliation compounded by financial stress as his wife, Martha, had to wait tables to support their family.
• Harsh realities of domestic strife and infidelity; their relationship devolves into cycles of fighting and resentment.

2. Songwriting Breakthrough & Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge

[10:25 – 13:10]

• Willie becomes a regular at the legendary Tootsie’s, rubbing elbows with renowned songwriters.
• Finds a crucial ally in Hank Cochran, who helps get him a gig at Pamper Music.
• First hit: “Hello Walls” recorded by Faron Young, earns Willie his first big royalty check: “The first thing Willie wrote while under contract to Pamper Music was a hit… Willie could hardly believe it.” (Jake Brennan, 14:00)

3. Collapse and Survival: The 27 Club Close Call

[07:40 – 10:00]

• In despair after constant rejection, Willie nearly succumbs to darkness:
  • Lays down drunk in the middle of Broadway, wondering if he wants to live or die: “Was he ready to die? Did he want to live? The questions swirled… he simply felt calm, ready to accept whatever fate had in store.” (Jake Brennan, 09:00)
• Ultimately, he gets up and keeps going.

4. Marriages, Infidelity, and Violent Consequences

[19:14 – 23:30]

• Marries Shirley Collie (his second wife) before finalizing his divorce.
• Rampant cheating continues: “He loved women. He loved their company. How they smelled and the way they smiled…” (Jake Brennan, 23:00)
• A jealous husband in Phoenix attacks Willie with a car jack, nearly killing him.

5. Willie’s Extended “Commune” and Family Turmoil

[30:55 – 36:25]

• Willie’s “ranch” in Ridgetop, Tennessee becomes a home for his sprawling, blended family—a precursor to Nashville’s hippie communes.
• Family violence erupts when Willie discovers his daughter’s husband, Steve, abusing her.
  • Willie reacts with violence (“his knuckles stung like hell… Steve yelled, ‘Don’t hit me Willie. I got anxiety.” (Jake Brennan, 31:15)
• The whole family bands together in defense, highlighting both the loyalty and volatility at the heart of Nelson’s world.

6. Shootout at Ridgetop

[36:25 – 41:50]

• After the confrontation with Steve, tensions ignite into an all-out gunfight:
  • Steve and his brothers return firing rifles at Willie’s farmhouse.
  • Willie and his drummer (and muscle), Paul English, retaliate with shotguns and rifles.
  • “Willie jumped up from the yard with his shotgun … a bullet grazed Willie’s head. Undeterred, Willie raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger.” (Jake Brennan, 38:57)
• Eventually, a tense truce is called.

7. Paul English: Drummer, Enforcer, Outlaw

[34:45 – 38:25]

• Paul English is introduced as Willie’s personal enforcer—a man with a violent, checkered past and a legendary devotion to the Nelson family.
• Stories abound of Paul using violence and intimidation to protect Willie and collect debts.

8. House Fire and the Rescue of Trigger

[41:50 – 43:48]

• December 23, 1970: A fire destroys Willie’s home.
  • He rushes into the flames to save two things: “In one hand he held a plastic bag with two pounds of Grade A Colombian grass … in his other hand: Trigger, his beloved Martin N20 nylon-stringed guitar.” (Jake Brennan, 43:30)
• The fire, due to faulty wiring, literally burns down the life Willie had built—and with it, marks the end of an era.

9. Rebirth: The Move to Texas and Emergence of Outlaw Willie

[43:48 – 45:23]

• Broke, divorced twice, responsible for four kids and two ex-wives, with his career stalled—Willie essentially gives up on Nashville.
• Relocates to Austin, Texas, trading in suits for jeans and bandanas, and embracing the outlaw persona: “A non-conforming badass ready to take up arms and defend his family … a redheaded stranger who wandered from town to town.” (Jake Brennan, 44:40)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On artistic rejection:
  “Willie’s songs were too weird. The way he sang, behind or ahead of the beat, it was some weird jazz shit. Just wasn’t country. Sure as hell wasn’t the Nashville sound.”
  — Jake Brennan, 06:30

• On near-suicide:
  “He simply felt calm, ready to accept whatever fate had in store. Turns out, fate did not plan to run Willie Nelson over.”
  — Jake Brennan, 09:10

• On the family’s stormy emotional life:
  “The mailbox at the top of the road read Willie Nelson and many others. Some called it Nashville’s first hippie commune. But all wasn't quiet on the Western front.”
  — Jake Brennan, 33:30

• On the shootout:
  “Willie jumped up from the yard with his shotgun ... a bullet grazed his head. Undeterred, Willie raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger. Paul English appeared at the side of the house, M1 in his hand, locked and loaded.”
  — Jake Brennan, 38:57

• On saving Trigger:
  “Seconds felt like hours. And then Willie emerged from the fire and the smoke, coughing and wheezing... In one hand he held a plastic bag with two pounds of Grade A Colombian grass ... in his other hand: Trigger … a Martin N20 nylon stringed acoustic guitar.”
  — Jake Brennan, 43:30

• On transformation:
  “They say you can’t go home again. And they’re only half right. Because Willie Nelson did decide to go back to Texas … a place where Willie Nelson could be himself. Just who was that? It was Shotgun Willie. A non-conforming badass... the redheaded stranger who wandered from town to town.”
  — Jake Brennan, 44:40

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|---------------------------------------------------------| | 03:05 | Start of episode, intro to Willie's chaotic backstory | | 06:30 | Willie faces Nashville rejection | | 09:00 | Willie’s Broadway near-suicide moment | | 14:00 | First songwriting success ("Hello Walls") | | 19:14 | Violence and infidelity in Willie's marriages | | 23:00 | Phoenix attack by jealous husband | | 30:55 | Ridgetop "commune" and family drama | | 34:45 | Paul English’s role as enforcer | | 38:57 | The Ridgetop shootout | | 41:50 | House fire and the rescue of Trigger | | 43:48 | Move to Texas/outlaw rebirth | | 44:40 | Emergence of Shotgun Willie/redheaded stranger persona |

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Tone, Style, and Language

• Dramatic, irreverent, and gritty—Jake Brennan’s narration is filled with black humor, literary flair, and pulpy asides. The tone balances admiration for Willie’s artistry with open-eyed acknowledgment of his flaws and excesses.
• The episode weaves between fact and dramatization, often slipping into the second person ("what you did as a struggling country star...") and fusing Willie's story with that of the fictional preacher from "Red-Headed Stranger."

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Conclusion

This episode of DISGRACELAND sets the stage for Willie Nelson’s transformation from hard-luck Nashville outsider to outlaw legend. By pulling no punches about Nelson’s violence, infidelity, brushes with doom, and stubborn individualism, it paints a portrait that is raw, deeply human, and quintessentially American. The narrative pauses just as Willie is about to begin his iconic Texas (and outlaw) chapter—"to be continued" with the promise of more adventure, myth, and music history.

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Transcript

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[Jake Brennan]

Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Willie Nelson are insane, broken, depressed. He almost joined the 27 Club on a Nashville street before he'd even sold a single song. He drank, smoked and cheated his way through multiple marriages. He was nearly beaten to death by an angry husband in a parking lot. He wielded a shotgun and a rifle during a shootout on his own property. And after 10 years of trying to make it on Music Row, he had the courage and the confidence to start all over again after a fire threatened to destroy the world he was living in. A world that was made better by Willie Nelson's great music. Music that dared to challenge the boundaries of a country politan mandate and in turn redefined an entire genre. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called mantovani mind meld mk2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. And why would I play you that specific slice of sad on the inside? Cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on December 23, 1970. And that was the day that Willie Nelson's house caught fire. A near tragic moment that closed one chapter of his life and gave way to new phases and stages on this part one of a special two part episode. Drinking, smoking and cheating. Angry husbands, Shootouts, fires and Willie Nelson. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. The preacher returned home to an empty house, but his head was far from empty. It was full of suspicion and jealousy, fear and rage and that eternal struggle, good and evil. The light in the dark. It was cold. He pulled a match from the pocket of his long black coat, struck it against a wooden table and lit an oil lantern. He called out his wife's name. Silence. Called out again. Nothing. Just the sound of his own breathing and the beating of his own heart. His pulse quickened as he walked through the house with the lantern in his hand. First the living room and then the bedroom. She wasn't there. She wasn't missing. The preacher knew exactly where she was and exactly what she was doing. He'd known for months. He had that sixth sense, that gift. It was why people came to him for guidance and comfort. They prayed with him and asked him to hold them in his thoughts. Tonight, however, he wasn't thinking about the trials and tribulations of his congregation. He had one thing, and one thing only on his mind. He picked up his double barrel shotgun, turned off the oil lantern, and walked out the front door. Then he mounted his black stallion and rode into town. Willie Nelson was on the road again, but not back to California, where the job market was as dry as cracked Texas soil. Someone once told him California loved Texas DJs. Maybe so, but San Diego didn't want anything to do with them, not as a DJ and not as a singer. He wasn't heading back to Oregon either. Sure, the gigs were plentiful and the locals got a thrill out of hearing a cotton picking, snuff dipping, tobacco chewing, stump jumping, gravy sopping coffee pot, dodging dump and eating frog gigging, hilly Billy DJ take over the airways. But Oregon wasn't Texas. It wasn't his market. The people weren't his people. And he certainly wasn't heading back to the buckets of blood in Fort Worth or way the hell down to Houston, where he wrote something like, what? Half a dozen tunes easy in the span of a week or two. Songs like Nightlife, Funny How Time Slips Away Crazy, I Gotta Get Drunk. They just came to him, one after the other, and while he was out driving or walking around, the weight of the world pressing down had no work, no hope, wife and three kids waiting at home waiting on him to make something happen. Only thing happening, though, were these songs, these fucking great songs. At least he thought. So he tried to sell them to a bandleader at the esquire Ballroom for 10 bucks a piece. Guy wouldn't buy them. Not because they weren't good, because they were good. The guy didn't want to screw Willie over, so he recorded one for Pappy Daly, and maybe Pappy's boy George Jones would like it, but Pappy hated it, said it wasn't country. Well, fuck Pappy Daily and fuck Houston. This time it'll be different. This time Willie was going in a new direction. He had to get out of Texas, so he dropped Martha and the kids off at Martha's folks place in Waco. And then he headed northeast in his beat up puke green buick. It was 1960. Willie Nelson was 27 years old. He'd done the door to door thing. Sold vacuum cleaners, sewing machines, encyclopedias. Now it was time to sell something that really mattered. Something he was good at. It was time to sell some songs for more than 10 bucks a pop. And anyone who's anyone knew that if you wanted to sell some country songs, you went to one place. Nashville. Willie had been writing songs since he was 10, playing in bands since before he hit puberty. Nashville, though, that was where you leveled up. Music City. Home of the Ryman, where WSM's 50,000 watt clear channel signal broadcasts the Grand Ole Opry from coast to coast. Home of Owen Bradley's Quonset Hut and Chet Atkins. RCA Studio B. The place where they called the best pickers the A team. If you weren't on the A team, you were either busting your ass to get on the A team or you were grinding it out on the road or in one of the many honky tonks strewn along Broadway. Maybe that's why it took Willie until he was 27 to go there. He had to work up the courage to prove that he really could write songs and get paid to do it. And now he had it. Not just courage, but confidence. He pulled into Nashville with a smile on his face. He had arrived, but Nashville didn't want him. Each door he opened slammed shut in his face. Heads shook side to side. Thanks, but no thanks. Willie's songs were too weird. The way he sang, behind or ahead of the beat, it was some weird jazz shit. Just wasn't country. Sure as hell wasn't the Nashville sound. Willie was distraught. Now what? He felt humiliated. And not just because he couldn't sell a tune. Because when Martha and the kids finally arrived, she had to start waitressing just so they could afford their $25 a week trailer. The whole situation made them resent each other. So they drank. Both of them, but Willie especially. Whiskey River, Take My Mind. They fought, screamed. Martha knew Willie was sleeping around. He told her that he wasn't up to doodley shit, but said it with some horse lipstick smeared across his face. She responded by biting his finger right down to the bone. Willie nursed his wounds and drowned his sorrows like a country song at Tootsie's Orchard Lounge in downtown Nashville. The hockey tonk's owner, Tootsie Bess, knew all the major players in town, but she endeared herself to the nobodies as well, guys like Willie who came to town with nothing but empty pockets. In a dream, songwriters met up at Tootsies to have polls, jam sessions, test out songs, get peer feedback, and empty more than a few mugs of Flagstaff in the process. One night, Roger Miller would be picking out Dang Me on a flat top. Another night, Hank Cochran played a new composition called I Fall to Pieces and Willie became a regular. He got friendly with the other songwriters, he plucked up the tunes he was peddling and he drank. On nights that there were no guitar pulls, he sat at Tootsie's Bar and looked out the window across the street to the Hitching Post where Martha was waiting tables. He knew other men flirted with her and he knew that she flirted back. He didn't like the thought of it, even if he was engaged in his own doodly shit. He watched as a light snow fell down on Broadway. It was late. He poured the contents of his mug down his throat. Just one more and then another. He was shitfaced. His mind raced. The fights with Martha, the struggles as a songwriter. What was the point of it all? It was a darkness on the face of the earth. Enough to make a guy feel permanently lonely. Willie got up from the bar and stumbled out into the cold night. He was alone on the sidewalk. No traffic, just stillness. He was so drunk he didn't realize he wasn't wearing a coat. He stepped off the sidewalk and then just laid down right in the middle of Broadway. He stared straight up into the night sky and the snow kept falling. Would a car come by? Would it see him and slam on its brakes? Or would the snow obscure him there on the ground? Was he ready to die? Did he want to live? The questions swirled around in his head, one after the other, and honestly, he had no answers for any of them. He simply felt calm, ready to accept whatever fate had in store. Turns out, fate did not plan to run Willie Nelson over the car. Instead, he got up, dusted himself off and walked back into Tootsies. Kept at it. Kept picking and stuck singing. Kept grin. No matter how he felt on the inside. Hank Cochran really liked what he heard. And soon he took Willie to audition at Pamper Music, Hank's music publishing firm. Willie played them crazy and funny. How time slips away. Pamper was impressed, but they didn't have the budget to hire another songwriter. Hank told him they could pay Willie using the raise they'd recently given him. That meant $50 a week. Hank tried to write with Willie, but it was obvious from the start that Willie didn't collaborate. He wrote alone and he wrote different, wrote simple, wrote what was right in front of him. Like this feeling he'd had ever since he arrived in Nashville. Vulnerability, despair, and this room he was sitting in now, these walls. Some days it felt like all a fella had to talk to were these four walls. The first thing Willie wrote while under contract to Pamper Music was a hit. Farron Young took hello walls to number one on the country charts in 1961, and a few months later Willie got his first royalty check, $3,000. Hello greenbacks. How'd things go for you today? Willie could hardly believe it. There was his name in parentheses right below the song title on the label of a Capitol Records 45. Willie Nelson could write a Nashville hit, but he could never have written what was about to happen next. Foreign

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The preacher found his wife's horse tied outside the one saloon in town. He dismounted and tied his stallion to the same post. He walked inside, shotgun in hand. Drunks ran their sloppy mouths. Piano players spun out a melody from the corner. Smoke hung from the ceiling. And the moment he came through the swinging doors, all eyes were on him. He was a sight, a man of God in an establishment like this. A house of vice, a den of sin. The preacher saw his wife there against the bar, one arm around another man. And the preacher was expecting the sight, but still it hurt to see it. She returned his gaze and the preacher thought she would give him this look of regret, panic, that she would beg for forgiveness. But she didn't. She just looked at him like a stranger, his coat as dark as a forsaken soul. His hair is red as the flames in the saloon's fireplace. The preacher didn't speak. He lifted up his shotgun, pointed it directly at the man standing next to his wife and pulled the trigger. The man's chest ripped open as he was blown backwards. Blood splattered all over the bar and all over the preacher's wife, who was now screaming. Everyone in the saloon ducked for cover. The preacher swung open the hinge of the shotgun and dumped out the two smoking shells. He reloaded and snapped the double barrel shut. He raised the shotgun again and this time aimed it at his wife. She was crying now, weeping, tears running down her face. She held her hands up. She begged for her life. Now she was sorry. Now she was penitent. Too little, too late. The preacher aimed the shotgun at his wife and then pulled the trigger one more time. Martha Nelson was yelling at her husband. That lying, cheating, no good scoundrel Willie Nelson didn't deny it. Guilty as charged, he yelled back. She wasn't listening to him, not anymore. She shot back the two fingers of whiskey in her glass and then hurled the empty glass at Willie's head. Willie ducked. His friend Hank Cochran was standing right behind him. He took the glass in the face and it shattered. Broken glass sliced Hank's face. Blood all over the bathroom floor. And Martha had no regrets. Neither did Willie when he left his wife of 10 years standing there and instead took his buddy Hank to the emergency room. Willie knew this day would come. It was the one thing he could actually predict, that his hound dog behavior would land him in hot water with the missus. The rest of it, though, he couldn't have imagined it. Farron Young's recording of hello Walls made him rich. But Patsy Klein's recording of his Song crazy made him even richer. The checks just kept coming. Willie took a side hustle as the basis in Ray Price's band. And in each town on the tour, the money went right through him. Willie wasn't the leader of the group, but he sure acted like it. He rented the fanciest hotel suites with a small fortune and he drank the rest. But the cash was never really gone. Just when he thought the money had dried up, there'd be a new check to cash. Now that he was a real Nashville songwriter, though, Willie wanted to be more. And not just a bass playing sideman. He wanted to sing, stand center stage. He wanted to be more than a tiny name written under a song title on the label of a record. He wanted to see his face on the COVID of a record sleeve. He wanted to be a best selling artist. And Liberty Records saw Willie's potential to become one. The LA label, home not only to the Ventures, Jackie DeShannon and the Chipmunks, but also Bob Wills and Tex Williams, signed Willie to a record deal in 1961. At Liberty, Willie discovered firsthand how he had to fight for artistic integrity. Liberty wanted him to go with the flow, and that flow was the Nashville sound. Country politin, they called it. Saccharine strings and backup singers. To Willie, it sounded overproduced. Willie wanted zero frills. The songs were simple and so they should sound simple. Willie didn't bristle at all of Liberty's ideas, though. In fact, there was one he accepted without hesitation. A duet with fellow country singer Shirley Collie. Shirley was the real deal, played with Bob Will as a Letty Frizzell, pretty as hell. Also, Willie and Shirley's duet willingly didn't make Willie a star, but it made the two singers an item. It was love at first sight. And just because Shirley was also married didn't stop her from running up a $2,000 tab on her husband's AMEX card while running around with Willie. Willie and Shirley married a few Years later, in 1963, before Willie's divorce to Martha was final. They tied the knot when they finished playing a residency at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas. Six 40 minute shows between 8pm and 2am every night. Night after night, it was a slog. When 2am rolled around, you expected to be dead tuckered, but you were wired. You couldn't sleep. Green Meanies, though, they did the trick. Placidil's sleeping pills make you feel like you just destroyed the world. Or rather, that the world had just destroyed you. But because Willie had Fallen in love again and married again didn't mean he was done chasing other women. Quite the contrary. He loved women. He loved their company. How they smelled and the way they smiled and the things they said. From Vegas to Fort Worth and North Hollywood to Fresno, Oklahoma City to Tulsa to Dallas and everywhere in between, Willie toured and Willie flirted. What Shirley didn't know wouldn't hurt her. In Phoenix, at JD's nightclub, he made sure to talk up one particularly fine looking lady. Willie turned on the char between sets. She blushed. She was flattered. Her husband, on the other hand, not so much. He followed Willie out of the parking lot after the show. He walked to his vehicle and grabbed a carjack from the trunk. And then he walked right up to Willie Nelson. Just look at him, all full of himself in his classy suit and nice white shirt and tie. Some big time Nashville prick thinking he was better than the good people in Phoenix and that he could just do what he wanted with their women. Cock of the goddamn walk. This was one husband who wasn't going to take it lying down. He didn't even have to say anything. Willie knew the guy was an enraged cuckold. He took one swing and the car jack bit into Willie's head. The blood gushed, ruined his goddamn suit. Willie collapsed to the pavement. His head pounded. The blood didn't stop. He was rushed to the hospital and he nearly died. Still, he wasn't about to stop. Not stop touring, not stop drinking, not stop smoking. And not stop fucking with someone else's wife. It was what you did as a struggling country star on the road. Well, it was what Willie Nelson did anyway. Lot harder than it looked. Every time you made eyes at another woman, you put yourself in danger. And Willie looked a lot. Which meant that danger was always lurking around every corner and in every parking lot. And when you weren't dodging jealous husbands, you were shaking down club owners to get the money you were owed. The whole goddamn circuit, coast to coast, was staffed by cheapskate rattlesnakes. For every night that you got paid what you were promised, you played three more nights where you got stiffed. Willie needed protection. Someone who had his back. Someone who wasn't afraid to get rough when the going got tough. Someone who wouldn't think twice about getting a little crazy. We'll be right back after this.

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[Jake Brennan]

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[Jake Brennan]

1970 Ridgetop, Tennessee Willie Nelson's knuckles stung like hell. His son in law, Steve, lay in a crumpled ball at his feet. Steve was holding his face in his hands. Don't hit me again Willie. Steve yelled. Don't hit me Willie. I got anxiety. That was rich anxiety. The guy beats his wife, Willie's 17 year old daughter, black and blue and bloody, and he's the one with anxiety. Willie told Steve that if he ever laid another hand on his daughter, he would kill him. And then he walked out the front door and drove back up the road to his house. Seven years earlier, in 1963, Willie and his wife Shirley bought a red brick ranch style home on 17 acres of land east of Nashville. It was close enough to Willie's day job on Music Row, but far enough away to provide a much needed respite from the trials of life as a professional musician. They worked the land when they weren't working the road. They raised Hogs, chickens, geese, ducks, horses, cattle. And the simplicity of life on a farm lessened the blow when Liberty dropped Willie after two lackluster albums, or when RCA picked him up and scratched their heads at what to do with them. Still, the songwriting checks kept pouring in. Eventually, Willie had enough money to buy a couple hundred more acres, and the ranch soon became a family affair. Willie's sister Bobby moved in with her three boys. Willie's mother, Merle, and her husband, and Willie's father Ira, and his wife. One by one, Willie's kids from his marriage to Martha moved onto the farm. And eventually even Martha did, too. Up the road with their daughter Lana and Lana's husband, Ste. The mailbox at the top of the road read Willie Nelson and many others. Some called it Nashville's first hippie commune. But all wasn't quiet on the Western front. First, in 1969, Shirley, like Martha before her, felt the sharp, unexpected sting of betrayal when one of Willie's many affairs came to light. But this was more than just another affair. A hospital bill arrived in the mail for the birth of a baby girl named Paula Nelson. Sleeping around on the side was one thing, but a baby? Shirley was out. The baby's mother, Connie, was in. And then Lana showed up at the house with a black eye and bloody nose. Paul English, Willie's drummer, suggested that the knuckle sandwich Willie had provided to Lana's husband was not enough. They had to do something else. Something that would send a message, really teach that low life piece of a lesson. They should break the guy's legs. Everyone in Willie's house laughed. Everyone except Willie. He knew Paul wasn't kidding. Paul was dead serious. This is what Paul did. Collected debts. And when debts couldn't be collected, he settled them. Paul English had history. The kind of history you want a guy to have who's paid to watch your back. Literally. Because Paul wasn't just Willie's drummer. Paul was Willie's muscle. Paul's childhood was full of petty theft, beanies, delinquency. He claimed to have been arrested more than 100 times over the course of his life, including three busts in one day. At 17 years old, he did nine months for burglary, even though, like most people on the inside, you know, he was actually innocent of that one. Paul had connections all over. He knew the guys who would be the most helpful. The guys he wanted to avoid, too. He knew the dealers with the best weed, which meant Paul had the best weed. He kept sawed off shotguns and assault rifles in the piano One of his most prized possessions was a silver.45 with a gold trigger. On one side of the barrel was a filigree depicting Paul engaged in an orgy. And the other side of the barrel displayed Paul going down on a woman. When you pointed it at someone, all they saw was welcome to hell written over the barrel. Sometimes Paul used the guns. And sometimes he didn't. He had many ways of making pay. Hey. You the deadbeat club owner in New Mexico who didn't pay Willie Nelson what he was owed? That's your Thunderbird on the business end of that forklift over there. 10ft in the air. Paul English has the keys to your car and the forklift. And he's also the guy who wrote you this little note. The one that says, come see me. Guess what the deadbeat club owner in New Mexico did. He went to see Paul. And that then he paid him. Or maybe you're one of the couple jerk offs who lost a bet playing a game of pool with Doyle, Willie's stepbrother and tour bus driver. You didn't cough up the money. It's just a quarter, you say. Smart ass. Paul starts beating on your friend to make a point. A bet's a bet. O so you wrap that pool cue around Paul's throat and pull tight. And that's when Paul pulls the.22 out of his pocket and sticks it straight up your right nostril. You think the steel caressing your nose hairs is uncomfortable? Just wait until he pulls the trigger, hoss. You want to see what it's like picking up pieces of your fucking nose off a felt table, you fucking redneck. Didn't matter if that was a quarter or a quarter million dollars. It's the principle of the thing. You with Willie Nelson or a member of Willie Nelson's extended family and you regret it. That was the thinking back at Ridgetop when Paul English was gung ho to break the legs of Lana's abusive husband, Steve. They didn't have much time to mull over in the plan. An engine rumbled in the distance. It was getting closer. Louder. It was right outside the house now. A gunshot rang out. A rifle. And then another. And a third. Willie grabbed his shotgun and Paul found his M1 rifle. They hightailed it outside. Connie hit the deck inside the house. She made the kids do the same. Lana and Martha just come inside through the back door. Now they were on the floor too. The truck drove past the house. But it started to circle back as it came across around for a second pass. Willie jumped up from the yard with his shotgun and he looked at the truck. Steve and his brothers, armed with rifles, took aim at the house again. A bullet grazed Willie's head. Undeterred, Willie raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger. Paul English appeared at the side of the house, M1 in his hand. Locked and loaded. He aimed underneath the truck and fired. The bullets peppered the back bumper. Air hissed from a tire that had been shot out, and the truck receded into the distance. And then, with a jerk, it turned around and headed back for more, wobbling on three good tires. Fucking balls on this asshole. Paul tossed Willie the M1 and pulled a snub nosed.38 from his sock. They both took aim and began to fire again, and then the brakes squealed and the truck came to a stop. Willie and Paul paused. Steve came out, hands in the air. Truce the next day Steve returned to Willie's house, though this time he came in peace and in shame. He told Willie he would never hit his daughter again. Paul, for one, said he was glad that Steve didn't stop his truck when they shot out his tire. Otherwise I would have had to aim to kill rather than shoot to miss, he said once again. Everyone in the house laughed, but not Paul. Paul liked jokes as much as the next guy, but when it came to the safety of family, and he, like so many others at Ridgetop and beyond, considered himself a lifelong member of Willie Nelson's family. There was nothing funny about that at all. The preacher drifted from town to town. He rode his jet black stallion and led his dead wife's horse by the reins. His reputation preceded him. He was the stranger who quenched his thirst for revenge by gunning down his wife and her lover. But now he was driven by something else. Self loathing. Despair. He hadn't heard from God in days. He'd been abandoned. Some called him Preacher. Others called him the Stranger. Most people didn't say more than two words to him. They minded their own business, looked the other way. They did this when he arrived at the next town on his journey. All except one. The preacher was hitching his stallion to a post outside a saloon saloon when a woman approached him. She was young, pretty. She made small talk. The preacher was rusty, but he feigned a smile and responded with a few words. She asked if she could pet the horse and he obliged. The setting sun caught his eye. He squinted for a fleeting moment. The woman looked like his dead wife. He knew it was just his eyes and the sun playing tricks on him, but he allowed himself to be tricked. The tense muscles throughout his body began to relax. Then the woman grabbed the horse's reins. She pulled the horse towards her. The preacher's dead wife's horse. This woman intended to make that horse hers. The preacher couldn't let that happen. He reached for his shotgun in the leather pouch of his stallion saddle and swung the barrel around. The woman had managed to climb onto the horse's back. She was getting ready to ride off into the sunset. She wasn't fast enough. The preacher aimed, screamed, the shotgun fired, and the woman fell lifeless from the horse, face down in the dirt. The preacher thought back to the man he was just days ago, when his wife was still alive and had yet to discover the betrayal, was an unwelcome guest in his home. He thought about that man, but he didn't recognize him. And he would never be that man. December 23, 1970 Willie Nelson was at a Christmas party in Nashville when the phone rang behind the bar. The bartender answered. He motioned Willie over. It was for him, one of his nephews back home on the farm in Ridgetop. His voice was breathless. Uncle Willie, he yelled. You gotta get up here. Your house is on fire. This house is melting. It took Willie 25 minutes to haul ass from Nashville back to Ridgetop, where he found his house was indeed melting. At first he thought of his family. Had they made it out safely? Yes, they were all here, all outside. Each one accounted for. And then he thought about the things besides his loved ones that he couldn't lose. Lose two very specific things inside the house that he had to save. The firefighters told him not to go inside. It was too dangerous and the entire place was engulfed in flames. Your family is safe, they told him. Everything else is just stuff. Willie didn't listen. He ran inside the burning home, flames looking at his face. Willie's family stood outside, fearing the worst, fearing that Willie had walked, walked himself into an early grave. Seconds felt like hours. And then Willie emerged from the fire in the smoke, coughing and wheezing, grateful to be alive. In one hand he held a plastic bag with two pounds of Grade A Colombian grass. Thanks to Paul English's connections, Willie was smoking more grass than he ever had before. The real reason he wanted to grab the weed was so the firefighters wouldn't find it and turn it in to the authorities. Besides, he was already going inside to save the thing that was in his other hand. Trigger. Trigger was Willie Nelson's guitar, named after Will Rogers's horse. Trigger was a Martin N20 nylon stringed acoustic guitar made out of Brazilian rosewood that Willie bought the previous year for $750. A nylon stringed guitar was an odd choice for anyone not playing classical music. But the tone fit Willie to a tee. It got him closer to the tone of his favorite guitarist of all time, Django Reinhardt. As Willie himself put it, it's just got a good sound. It was simple, just like Willie's songs. Just like the cause of the blaze. Faulty wiring, the basement rigged up by Willie's stepfather. Little else survived the fire. Willie was 37 years old. The home homestead he had cultivated for seven years was gone. He had a wife and four kids to support, plus two ex wives. And the royalty checks weren't as big as they once were. He was still grinding it out in dive bars. Despite nine albums under his belt for rca, his career as a country artist had stalled. Something had to give. Something had to change. They say you can't go home again. And they're only half right. Because Willie Nelson did decide to go back to Texas. Texas. But not the Texas of his youth. This time it was two hours south of Willie's hometown of Abbott. A place where the rent was cheap and so were the good times. 99 cents for a six pack of Texas Pride, extra light lager. 10 bucks for an ounce of killer weed. And Willie Nelson was on the road again. To a place where he could grow his short hair long and ditch the clean shaven face for a big old beard. Trading the suit and tie for a T shirt and blue jeans. A red bandana to tie around your head. A place where Willie Nelson could be himself. Just who was that? It was Shotgun Willie. A non conforming badass ready to take up arms and defend his family. It was a twice divorced ladies man working through the phases and stages and cycles and circles of his life. It was a redheaded stranger who wandered from town to town. But soon Willie Nelson would be a stranger to no one. Soon the whole world would know him by name, by his voice, by the sound of his guitar or trigger. Soon he would be famous the world over when he sang the ballad of that revenge seeking preacher who murdered his own wife. An entire album that would cross country music over to the pop mainstream. But first, Willie Nelson had to get himself to Austin, Texas. I'm Jake Brennan and this episode of Disgraceland is to be continue. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes [e-mail] if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad Free free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on [e-mail] Disgracelandpod Rock a rollie Luck.

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