← DISGRACELAND
DISGRACELAND
Willie Nelson (Pt 2): Grifters, Con Men, Thieves, and the Reinvention of the Outlaw
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Double Elvis.
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You know how it goes. Getting super into something that can lead to watching it, listening to it, reading about it, maybe even picking up something to go with it. That's where prime comes in. Amazon prime isn't just fast free delivery, though to be honest, that's a lifesaver. It's also prime video, Amazon music, and so much more. Whatever the interest, it's on Prime. Lately there's been a dive into new recipes, catching up on lifestyle documentaries, and building the perfect playlist to match. And prime has been part of it all. It's like a one stop shop for any passion, whether it's fashion, food, family, or discovering the next favorite show. So for anyone always exploring something new or rediscovering something meaningful, prime is right there. Whatever you're into, it's on Prime. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of whatever you're into. Amazon.comprime so I try to stay disciplined.
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With work and I try to do my creative task mainly the writing of the podcast in the morning hours. But you can't always control when inspiration is going to hit. So last night I'm up until about midnight researching and then I, I start writing, which I didn't want to do, but I had to go with it. I'm in the flow. I stay up way later than I want to. I still got to get up early in the morning and I'm bone tired. Coffee isn't helping. So thankfully I've got my stash of five hour Energy and they've got this new Confetti craze flavor that I love. It's fantastic. Tastes great. Tastes like a party in a bottle. Which when you're dragging in the morning, believe me, is much needed. Fantastic flavor with this new five Hour Energy confetti. Great. It's just vanilla y buttery. That's my jam right there. One of the things I also like about five hour Energy, the bottles. As you probably know, they're tiny and resealable. I can take em anywhere I want. So if I'm gonna hit a wall later in the day, I'm prepared. I just tap into my five Hour Energy stash and I am good to go. Wherever I go. This is a little party in a bottle. It's gonna pump you up. It's gonna get you rolling into your day. Whether it's the morning, whether it's the afternoon, whether it' confetti craze flavor is available online, head to www.5hourenergy.com or Amazon to order yours today. This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elv, the Ballad of Willie Nelson. His trials and tribulations as an unorthodox songwriter in Nashville, his creative rebirth as a free spirited outlaw in Austin, and his ascension into legend is so complex that we needed two episodes to properly tell this story. If you're just getting hip to this now, I suggest you hit pause and go back to the last episode of Disgraceland, Part one of the Willie Nelson Story. In this episode we get into Willie's Texas reinvention as the ultimate outsider, a metamorphosis from freak flag flyer to mainstream mainstay that is rife with tales of drug smuggling, arson and international run ins with Johnny Law. We also get into his association with grifters, con men and thieves and how that led not only to one of the most publicized busts of a superstar in the 20th century, but but also to an extended family fueled by karma and loyalty. This is a story about how some of the greatest music of the 20th century, not just country music, was made by a man who did what he damn well pleased because he simply couldn't do anything else. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called Boots and Cats MK1. I played you that clip because I can't afford the rights to Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. And why would I play you that specific slice of queen bass line Stealing Cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 9, 1990. And that was the day that federal agents placed Willie Nelson under arrest, officially turning him from a superstar to an outlaw on this, the second chapter of a special two part episode. Outlaws and Outsiders. Grifters, Con Men and Thieves. Drugs, Arson Johnny Law and Willie Nelson. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Willie Nelson was a deadbeat, a lawbreaker, a modern day desperado. He owed Uncle Sam something like $15 million. His tour bus had the word Hemp mobile written on the side. And this is in 1990 when marijuana was still 100, illegal to possess even in small quantities. He was practically begging to be put into handcuffs. He surrounded himself with con artists and thieves. That so called extended family staged a series of farm made benefit concerts that forced the US government to cancel cutting back aid to farmers. It made the government look like fools while he that shit kicking shitheel country singer was the one getting all the love. And when it came to love, Willie had none for his country. He sympathized with cop killers. In that shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the one that left two FBI agents dead. Willie Nelson made his true allegiance known when he performed a benefit concert not for the fallen G men but for Leonard Peltier, the Native American who allegedly pulled the trigger. But Willie Nelson served a different master, and now he was going to get what he deserved. The feds were going to enjoy giving it to him as well. They were going to savor every minute of this moment. And they began the long, slow walk across the green to where Willie Nelson was playing nine holes. Willie teed up another ball and looked out over Pedernales country Club, the 76 acre property in Travis County, Texas, he purchased 11 years earlier. In 1979. He saw the agents striding across the green from a distance, and before he took a swing, he told his latest favorite joke. What's the difference between an IRS agent and a whore? A whore will quit fucking you after you're dead. Willie's friends laughed, but their smiles soon faded as the feds got closer. This wasn't a laughing matter. Some serious shit was about to go down. His friends felt around for the pieces stashed in their belts and pockets. Willie told them all to chill. This wasn't the time to make a stand or to make a scene. He hit the golf ball with his nine iron and exuded that patented laid back vibe. Calm, cool, collected. The agents were within earshot now. One flashed a badge. Willie Nelson? He asked, and then with a smirk said, you're under arrest. 1973 Austin, Texas Bobby Hederman, the guy who booked the shows at the Armadillo World Headquarters, or the Dillo, as the locals called it, was losing his patience. He was still sore about how his staff had been treated at Willie Nelson's Fourth of July picnic, a music festival that was held that summer, bossed around by guys carrying knives on their hips and pistols jammed in their socks. And that kind of bad mojo only made the divide between the rednecks and the hippies worse. And now it was jeopardizing Willie's relationship with the venue he'd been playing for almost a year. You gotta control your friends, bobby told Willie. I can't have them pushing around the staff and packing heat in the building. Bobby had a point. The Dillo wasn't some old timey saloon. It was more Fillmore east than the Wild Wild West. Willie could get behind all that. But life wasn't so black and white. There was a little good and a little bad in everyone. And life was also short. So Willie Nelson was going to do what he wanted, even if that meant no more shows at the Dillo. It was cool. You go your way and I go mine and life goes on. Especially in Austin. Austin was unlike the rest of Texas. Austin was weird and they kept it that way. Its politics were progressive and so was its music. Austin wasn't just a country town stuck in the sepia toned past. It was ground zero for the blues and R B, Kahunto and Diano and some far fucking out rock and roll. Austin was Rocky Erickson taking the elevator to the 13th floor. Austin was Townes Van Zant, living for the sake of the song. Austin was Doug Somme, living off mushrooms and jalapenos. Austin fit Willie Nelson like one of the faded, well worn T shirts he had taken to wearing. But when he moved back to Texas following the fire at his ranch outside Nashville, the one where he heroically saved two pounds of grass and his trusty guitar trigger, it felt like a major chapter of his life had closed. It also felt like he had failed at doing what he had set out to do. He was pushing 40 years old, and though the royalty checks for his songs Crazy and hello Walls were still rolling in, he hadn't penned a top 10 hit in a decade. His career as a performer was faring even worse. Liberty Records didn't know what to do with him and neither did rca. He didn't last long at either label. To succeed in Nashville, you had to conform. And Willie Nelson just wasn't the conforming type. In Austin, you could be improper. None of this fancy showbiz shit. Nashville could keep the nudie suits and string ties In Austin, chaos ruled. As long as the chaos was laid back. You grew your hair up, let your beard get good and wily, wrap a red bandana around your head and no one was gonna say shit. This may seem quaint now in 2023, but 50 years ago, in 1973, Willie Nelson was the ultimate outlaw on a scene full of outsiders just like his pals Waylon, Merle and Chris. The way they look, the music they played, the they didn't give. Not everyone understood it, but a few did, like Atlantic Records. Jerry Wexler, the guy responsible for, among other things, reinventing the careers of Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin at do or die moments in their creative lives. There wasn't a living ass at Atlantic that knew country music or was interested in it, Wexler later said, but he knew it and it interested him. So he took the gamble, as he often did, and established a country division at the label. And not just any country division like Austin. Atlantic's idea of country music would be different. Doug Song was an easy get, but signing Willie felt like they had nabbed the best kept secret in the Lone Star State. First, Wexler brought Willie to New York where he made Shotgun Willie, which for all intents and purposes was the first truly brilliant album of his care. Imagine that. Willie Nelson was 40 years old before he released Stone Cold Classic LP. Next, Wexler took Willie to Muscle Shoals, where he made Phases and Stages, a song cycle about divorce, with the legendary swamper's rhythm section backing him up. The performances on both records were fast and loose. They were as relaxed and comfortable as Willie's new Austin state of mind. But although Jerry Wexler's gamble breathed new life into Willie Nelson the performer, the records didn't sell enough to justify a country outpost at Atlantic Records. The label shut it down. Columbia Records was quick on the rebound. Columbia was still pissed at Wexler and Atlantic for stealing Aretha from them back in the 60s. And this was karma. It was deliberate and with the help of Willie's new manager. Willie's new deal with Columbia was unprecedented. For the first time in his professional life, Willie Nelson had complete creative control. So he did what he wanted. Willie had an idea for a new record based on an old song that he used to spin when he was a dj. The album would tell the story of a preacher who comes home to find that his wife has been unfaithful. The preacher murders his wife and her lover in a fit of blind rage and then wanders from town to town as a fugitive. He told his band to lay back, cool out and play what you feel. Their performances sounded like how you felt when you took a super big hit, a couple Colombian Grass. When Redheaded Stranger was released in the spring of 1975, Columbia was worried that they'd made a huge mistake. This wasn't the sound of Willie's shit hot live band. This was sparse and strange. Billy Sherrill, the Nashville producer who helped define the country politan sound was blunter than most. He said it sucked. What the shit did some corporate suits in New York or Billy fucking Cheryl know about what was happening in Austin? Willie was preparing to stage his third annual Fourth of July picnic on a day the Texas Senate had proclaimed would be officially known as Willie Nelson Day. Blue eyes crying in The Rain, Redheaded Stranger's first single sat at number one on the Billboard country chart. Willie played Doug Weston's Troubadour in West Hollywood while Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan watched from the audience. The Following March in 1976, Red Headed Stranger was certified gold. Scuffles with Bobby Hederman at the Dillo or disparaging remarks of the Nashville elite. These were the last things on Willie Nelson's mind. Austin made Willie weird. It made him an outsider, but it also made him a star. In weirdos, outsiders, stars, they all share one thing in common. They do whatever the fuck they want. I think the last time I spoke to you guys about quints, I told you about the transit quilted duffel bag that I got for my wife. Well, I got myself a Napa leather duffel bag from Quince as well, and I just used it. We used both our bags on this family trip that we took out west. I love this bag, okay? It looks cool, it looks casual. It looks way more expensive than it is. Not that I care about that, but it just, it's good quality and you can kind of tell when you just look at it. I stuffed it with my new double brush stretch jacket from Quince. You know, when you're, you're going out to dinner, it's summertime, it's too hot to wear a jacket, but you're going somewhere kind of dressy, but you don't wear a blazer. You're kind of in that sort of formal fashion. No man's land. That's where the double brushed stretch jacket from Quints comes into play. It dresses you up casually and smartly and you can rock it out around town as well if you're just running errands and you want to look good. This jacket is my new favorite addition to my wardrobe. And like I said, it along with my Go to Quince merino all season base tees fit perfectly in my nappa leather duffel bag from Quince. The best part of all this, everything with quints is half the cost of similar brands. Okay? That's important. That matters. And they can do this because they work directly with top artisans. They cut out the middlemen and quints gives you luxury pieces without the markup. So keep it classic and cool with long lasting staples from quint. Go to quince.com disgraceland for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com disgraceland to get free shipping and 365 day returns quints.com disgraceland every.
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Week on the Moth podcast, real people tell their stories of heartbreak, humor and.
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Crime live on stage.
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This identity theft was different because this person had messed with the most dangerous type of person that exists, which is someone with limited options and a lot of free time.
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For mysteries big and small. Follow and listen to the Moth on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The feds didn't even let Willie Nelson finish his round of golf. They wanted it all, and they wanted it now. Jewels, priceless artwork, luxury cars. But first they take whatever cash was in the safe. Willie walked them inside the Pedernales clubhouse, which he'd converted into a recording studio. He turned the dial on the safe to enter the combination and swung the door open. The feds couldn't believe what they weren't seeing. It was empty. Where is it? They asked. Where's all the money? The money was with Willie Nelson's people, always had been. Not just the musicians on his payroll or his ex wives or his current wife or his children. There were bus drivers to pay, stage managers, lighting directors, bodyguards and groundskeepers and golf pros and receptionists, nephews and half brothers and friends and friends of friends and business advisors and attorneys and other musicians who were cool and technically didn't have jobs but were allowed to live rent free on these breathtaking rolling hills just eight miles away from Austin. Some said it was too many people. The dishonest people fleeced Willie on the regular. But even dishonest people could be loyal, and loyalty was key in a time of need. I know they're stealing from me, willie said. But at least I know who they are. They have families to feed, too. I could clear them out and get a whole new set and then I wouldn't know who they are. When it came down to it, Willie Nelson didn't mind getting conned as long as he knew that the guy Doing the conning. Had his back. Stick your head out the window and I'll blow it off. Geno McCausland was waving his pistol at the cars as they crawled by. No one was getting their money back. The investors, the other promoters, they were all sol. The box office receipts were gone. Just accept it. There were 80,000 people here at 10 bucks ahead. Do the math, Gino. There had to be cash to recoup. Didn't matter. Geno was running the show. And Geno said it was gone. And now everyone else needed to get gone too. So Geno waved his pistol some more. Show's over. Get the fuck out. 1976 Gonzales, Texas. Willie Nelson's 4th Annual 4th of July Picnic didn't go as planned. First There was the 100 degree heat and heavy rains. Someone drowned in a nearby stock pond. The Bandidos motorcycle club, who were hired to run security. Gave off serious Altamont vibes as they strong armed the crowd. People were stabbed and set on fire. And at the end of a long day and an even longer night, after performances by George Jones, Bobby Bear, David Allan Coe, Billie Joe Shaver, Doug Somm and Leon Russell. It was 8am the next morning and they were out of time. Willie didn't even get to play. But there was an even bigger problem. Promoters were $200,000 short of breaking even. Maybe Geno McCausland knew where the money went. And maybe he didn't. Willie didn't stress about it. Geno was cool cause Geno was loyal. Willie had known Geno since way back. Geno promoted shows when Willie was a nobody. Muchos respect and trust. Willie never forgot that. Just like Willie never forgot the other couple of fast talking Texans who got in early on his ascendance. Those guys could do whatever the fuck they wanted to do. Texas Willie didn't care if they were taking a little off the top or even a lot. In fact, he expected some skimming. Even the con artists had to earn a living. So he let four guys handle Texas. He told his manager not to worry about it. Don't look too hard at the bottom line. And there were no complicated contracts, no red tape. They just had an understanding. An understanding that everyone benefited from Willie's altruistic ways. But no one benefited more than Willie himself. And he didn't need a gun in order to do what he wanted. He had other guys for that. By 1978, Willie Nelson had achieved an unprecedented level of success for a country artist. His duet with Waylon Jennings. Mamas don't let your babies grow up To Be Cowboys was a number one country hit that crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100. And his 22nd studio album, Stardust, a collection of pop standards produced by his neighbor, one time Stax house band leader Booker T. Jones, was a smash. Willie liked singing other people's songs. Writing was hard. Writing was Nashville covers were half as hard to put together. Stardust didn't leave the country charts for 10 years straight. Now Willie was on the COVID of People magazine. He broke Frank Sinatra's attendance record in Vegas. In fact, old blue eyes opened for Willie, not the other way around. His trademark bandana and his guitar trigger were as iconic and easily identifiable as the Nike swoosh. Willie Nelson pulled this all off in part by cutting down on the chaos. Chaos that had once served to define the life of an Austin outsider now needed to be refined in order to push higher into the mainstream. Boundaries were set on drug use. Cocaine was strictly prohibited. You're wired, you're fired was the new mantra for Willie's posse. Weed was cool and so were uppers and downers. Willie knew all about needing help to make it through the night. But coke was out. People on coke and people on weed didn't mix. And it turned guys paychecks into dust, literally. Besides, Willie Nelson's vibe was carefully constructed around one particular illegal substance and one substance only. Weed was a constant. It took the edge off, made the world mellow and chill. The more Willie smoked it, the more he realized how bad alcohol had been for him in the past and how much marijuana leveled him out. I don't smoke weed to get high, he said. I smoke weed to get normal. But in the late 1970s, smoking weed wasn't normal. It was transgressive, deviant, lawless. And word of Willie's outlaw behavior followed him around like smoke from a roach. When Willie and his tourmate and fellow tootsies, regular Hank Cochran, stepped off a plane in the Bahamas only to find their luggage missing, Willie didn't sweat it. There were worse things in the world than hanging out in paradise without a change of clothes for a day or two. When he retrieved his bags a few days later at the airport, Willie wasn't greeted by an airline employee. He was greeted by the badge of a customs agent. Shit. Probably should have just let that suitcase go. But he was here now. A big fucking star and a big fucking pickle. And the agent held up a small baggie of grass. Willie knew the one. It was stashed in the pocket of a pair of jeans in a suitcase. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas didn't give a shit that Willie and Hank had a tour to resume. So Willie Nelson's next stop was a jail cell. What happened then? Well, Willie sure did regret it. But he knew just what he was gonna do. He was gonna get drunk, even if it was behind bars. The Bahamian government let Willie sweat it out for a bit. Then they decided they'd made their point. A guard walked to Willie's cell to deliver the good news. He was free to go back home as long as he never stepped foot in the Bahamas again. But the guard unexpectedly found Willie already in a good mood. Empty beer cans were scattered at his feet, a smile plastered on his face. Later, when Willie Nelson met President Jimmy Carter, he may have told him exactly how he smuggled a six pack into a Bahamian jail cell. Or maybe he didn't. Either way, President Carter laughed when Willie told him about his little dust up in paradise. During a dinner in which Willie was guest of honor at the White House, President Carter was a fellow outsider, a peanut farmer who was now leader of the free world. And like Willie Carter didn't forget a favor. He didn't forget friends like Willie who had lent their talents to his grassroots campaign. So at the White House, Willie dined, performed in the Rose Garden. And then he and his wife retired to the Lincoln Bedroom for the night. Or so he thought. In the middle of the night, there was a knock at the door. Psst. Willie got out of bed, quietly went to the door and opened it slowly. Chip, President Carter's 27 year old, lovable burnout son, smiled at Willie from the other side. He held the joint in his hand. Chip led Willie through a series of hallways and then up all the way to the roof of the White House. And they sat down and looked at the Washington Monument. Pennsylvania Avenue was lit up like a Christmas tree. Willie took a deep hit on the joint and exhaled. While the President of the United States slept somewhere down below. No one was the wiser. Just the way Willie liked was one thing. To be a household name, a star. To be loved by many like Chip Carter and targeted by others like the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. But what bothered Willie was what his safety, and thus the safety of his Excellency extended family, the family he worked hard to support, was threatened. In those moments, he got impulsive. In those moments, he went into true outlaw mode. In those moments, Willie Nelson fought fire with fire. We'll be right back after this word. Word, word.
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Willie Nelson's old buddy Zeke pulled his pickup up to the pump. Willie jumped out of the passenger side and grabbed the gas can from the truck bed. He filled it up with 5 gallons of regular while Zeke ran inside for a complimentary book of matches. As he twisted the cap back on the can, Willie thought some more about this centennial. It really pissed him off. Sure, he played a fundraiser to help us hometown of Abbott, Texas celebrated his birthday, but he didn't ask for this his name in big, bold letters on billboards over by Interstate 35. The home of Willie Nelson, they read. Shit. Abbott was still the one place where Willie could slip back into the old days, Be his old self, not worry about being hounded by people. The good, the bad and the ugly. The ones that either wanted his autograph or wanted to put his hands in a pair of cuffs. He still signed autographs, every last one of them. And he always would, no matter how famous he got. But this was a step too far. They may as well have drawn a giant arrow on those signs and written, willie is here. Willie and Zeke were going to take care of this. Like the couple of young at heart hellraisers they were. They were going to burn those billboards to the ground. Zeke and Willie went way back. Zeke was the guy who showed Willie how the only way to live was on the edge. Zeke taught Willie poker and how life wasn't much different than bluffing at a card table. But this was in 1949. This was 1981. Willie was 48 years old, well on his way to becoming the highest grossing concert act in the world, and he was currently tossing gasoline at the legs of a huge billboard. They lit a match. The flames erupted. The fire began to crackle at the base of the sign. A wind blew in, the flames dimmed, and the fire went out. They lit another match and tossed it. And another. Each time, the flames started up again, and each time, they quickly died out. The longer Willie and Zeke stayed there, the higher the chances were that the one cop car and Abbott would roll up and catch them in the act. Sometimes life didn't let you go out on the edge, no matter how hard you tried. The next morning, the billboard was burning again. Only this time, it was really burning. Abbott PD arrested a local kid. Willie didn't know if the kid had finished what Willie started or if the billboard simply started burning again. And this poor bastard had a reputation bad enough to be the scapegoat. Either way, Willie wasn't about to let some kid take the fall. He called the station. I was the one who burned the fucking sign. He said the town accepted his confession as well as the logic that the billboard was his to burn. Since he funded, Abbott didn't have the heart to argue with its most famous son. But not everyone in Abbott was about to give Willie Nelson a free pass. Especially when it came to murder. Margie Lundy was an old pal. She owned a honky tonk called the Night Owl just south of Abbott. Years back, the Night Owl was one of the few places you could catch a Willie Nelson gig before Nashville or the rest of the world knew who the hell he was. Margie Lundy had Willie's respect and his loyalty. So when she was arrested and charged with the murder of her brother in law, Willie didn't hesitate to testify on her behalf as a character witness. She said she killed the guy in self defense, and Willie believed her. If Margie killed him, Willie told the jury, he must have had it coming. The prosecutor didn't hide his contempt for Willie. What kind of witness was this guy anyway? A dope smoker, a womanizer and arsonist? In the end, the jury agreed with Willie and with Margie. Authority figures like the prosecuting attorney just didn't see eye to eye with Willie Nelson. And that was okay, because the feeling was mutual. 1990. Pedernalis Country Club, Texas. Seeing as there was no cash in the safe, the feds took everything else. Framed gold and platinum records, spools of recording tape, golf carts, photographs. They padlocked the whole place. They seized Luck, the phony western town built on Willie's property for the 1985 movie adaptation of Red Headed Stranger. They seized Willie's assets in California, Hawaii, Alabama. And then they put everything on the auction block. Everything but Trigger. Willie's trusty guitar was the only thing he couldn't stand to lose. And exactly how did Willie's most quintessential valuable assets stay out of the hands of the the feds? That was a trade secret. A trick Willie learned early on in life. It was a bluff at the poker table. It was how he was able to smuggle a six pack into the Bahamian prison cell. Or how Gino McCausland and the boys were able to make thousands of dollars disappear from the till. Everything else was just stuff. Willie had come from nothing once before. He could do it again. So he got himself out of the jam with the IRS the way he got himself out of every other jam in his life with his music with Trigger. In the summer of 1991, Willie released the IRS tapes Who'll Buy My Memories? A two CD set featuring just Willie and his guitar playing some of the biggest songs of his career. Maybe you saw commercials for the album on tv. You could only order it over the phone. It was probably the first and only album ever recorded with the sole purpose of being a revenue stream for the federal government. And by 1993, following sales of the double disc and auctions of his belongings, the IRS declared Willie's debt officially settled. He should have been left with next to nothing. But Willie Nelson was a man who led a life by karma and was loyal to those around him, no matter if the rest of society viewed them as bad people. His friends, his fans, his extended family. The farmers that the federal government had forsaken and that Willie helped year after year with farm aid. They were nothing if not loyal. They bid on many of the items on the auction block and made sure that when the dust settled, Willie got back what he deserved. And then he got back to doing what he did. Singing, touring. He was busy. As busy as he'd ever been. Just trying, as he so modestly put it, to pay the rent and keep the lights on. It was all he knew. It was therapeutic. It helped him forget about the things he didn't want to think about. His mind was full of other things. Things other people, including someone who needed help at the one time Willie wasn't able to give it. Don't call him Willie. Call him Billy. Billy was his own man. He wanted to be known for his own accomplishments. He could sing, he could raise hell, and he could do both without holding on to his daddy's coattails. But wherever he went, they all said the same thing. There goes Willie Nelson's boy. Billy Nelson was the third of Willie Nelson's seven children. Like his father, Billy was a musician. But his addictions were always landing him in trouble. And his dad was frequently coming to the rescue. Not physically, because Willie was often away from home, on the road, doing what he had to do to pay the rent. But he helped financially. Like when Billy's condo at the Penninalis Country Club was burned to the ground as a result of a botched drug deal. Willie had the place rebuilt and gave Billy 50 grand to get his shit together. But Willie wasn't always able to help. Especially not in 1991, when every last cent he made was funneled directly to to the irs. Billy, at the time was in a tailspin. He still wasn't over his mother's death from two years earlier. He was heartbroken when his wife left him and took their only daughter. He was arrested four times for drunk driving. He was broke. His famous father had fallen from grace in the eyes of many. Willie's tax woes turned him into a punchline on late night talk shows. All Billy had was the solace of that old plot of family land. Unricht Tennessee Ridgetop was full of good memories of his mom, his sisters, his aunt Bobby Lee and Paul English, who kept his daddy's royalty checks coming in steady. Everyone had what they wanted, no one went without. Life was simpler then. It was at Ridgetop that Billy Nelson was found on Christmas of 1991, almost 21 years to the day since the house fire that served as the catalyst for his father's return to Texas. He was hanging from the ceiling of his log cabin home, a cord wrapped around his neck. He was 33. Willie was devastated. For a parent to lose their child, the pain and sorrow Willie wrote about when he was his son's age, none of it compared to this. The ache, the misery, it was like part of him was gone. It was unbearable. Willie found no solace in spirituality. He'd long believed that death was not the end. That after your body dies, some part of you, your soul, your consciousness, your spirit lives on. He hoped that believing in reincarnation would make grieving a loved one's death easier. But when it came down to it, when it was time to put that theory to the test in the real world, believing or not believing, it didn't do a damn thing. There was only one thing Willie Nelson could do. It felt good to be on the road again. The road stretched out to the horizon. It took you far away from here. Sometimes there were shows to play at the end of the road and other times there were records to cut. Johnny Cash, Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney were all waiting in various cities, sure, but so was everyone. Toots and the Maytas, Winton Marsalis, Fish, Snoop Dogg, Ringo Starr. Willie Nelson's extended family was beholden to no. 1 genre. On November 26, 2010, the day after Thanksgiving, Willie Nelson was on i10 headed back to Austin from California. Around 9am his tour bus approached a Border Patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, Texas. The bus slowed down and came to a stop. This was 20 years after the IRS bussed and his bus no longer read Hemp Mobile on the side. But the authorities still didn't like what the outlaw Willie Nelson stood for. The dogs were first to board the bus. Their noses led them right to it. Six ounces of weed. Willie didn't deny that it was his. It's kind of surprising, said the County Sheriff, while 77 year old Willie Nelson sat behind bars in a local jail. But we treat him like everybody else. He could get 180 days and if he does, I'm going to make him cook and clean. Of course, Willie Nelson didn't cook or clean for anyone. After the prosecutor ridiculously suggested that he perform Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain in lieu of a penalty, Willie Nelson paid a $550 fine and walked away. It didn't sit well with the judge. Anyone else would have been charged with a felony, but not Willie Nelson. Willie Nelson walked away from a possession charge in the Bahamas. He walked away from an arson charge in his hometown. In the eyes of the judge, the law made a habit of looking the other way for Willie Nelson, and that was not fair. So in 2012, the judge reopened the case and over 10 years later, it remains open. Over a decade after he was busted for six ounces of weed, Willie Nelson, now 89 years old, remains one of the most beloved men in popular music and an outlaw in his home state of Texas. And that would be a disgrace if it wasn't so badass. Brennan and this is Disgraceland. 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 for page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. 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