Fifty years ago, Willie Nelson changed the country music game (and his own life) forever with a single album that became a sensation. Hop into a retrospective of the Red Headed Stranger album.
Red Headed Stranger: Risk And Authenticity
Great artistry is often defined by a pair of enduring psychological forces — risk and authenticity. Looking back at the life and career of Willie Nelson, it’s easy to see that lasting success did not arrive until Willie took a risk. A huge risk. And did so in the name of authenticity. Frank Sinatra sang “My Way.” Willie lived it.
He chose to abandon an otherwise successful career in Nashville, whose studio excesses were to him nothing less than a stranglehold. Which led to the risk of leaving Nashville, where the house he lived in had burned to the ground anyway. So, he packed up and drove all the way to his native Texas to launch Willie 2.0, which included not only a remake of the way he looked (letting his newly braided hair flow freely) but also what he was willing to accept, or defiantly reject, in sharing his music with the world.
As Nelson biographer Joe Nick Patoski once said, Willie’s career should have been over. But moving to Austin freed him up to become the leader of the newborn outlaw country genre. Willie became the “Cosmic Cowboy” who merged successfully the cowboy and hippie demographic of the Texas state capital — which Willie alone transformed forever.
And therein lies the enduring success of Red Headed Stranger. It alone became the turning point in Willie’s career, validating both the risk he took and the authenticity it bequeathed. In 1974, Willie had released Phases and Stages, a concept album about the breakup of a man and woman, told through the perspective of each. It was recorded not in Nashville but in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, albeit with session musicians and not Willie’s preferred “Family” band, which he loved and considered his own.
The “Family” had appeared with Willie on the 1973 album Shotgun Willie, but even then, the sound was compromised, in his mind, with session musicians playing a role in shaping the final product. Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages are terrific albums — the only two Willie recorded for Atlantic Records, from which he soon parted ways.
He then signed with Columbia Records, a label that christened with stardom, among others, Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel. Because of his experience with Atlantic and the labels preceding it, Willie — like a free-agent baseball player charting his own bold future — was careful to agree to a contract that embraced his authenticity to the fullest. With no exceptions.
So, with Red Headed Stranger, Willie got to record an entire album with “Family” intact in a one-room studio in Garland, Texas, which helped define the minimalist, authentic sound he desired. And, he was able to do so with the “Family” band only, with not a single session musician stuck there by the label. Even then, the plane encountered turbulence.
Ace harmonica player Mickey Raphael knew Phil York, a seasoned engineer at Autumn Sound Studios in Garland, which became the runway for Red Headed Stranger.
“The way his contract read with Columbia, he had complete creative control,” Raphael says. “And could turn in whatever he wanted to. That being said, he decided to record with his band, which he’d never done. So, this was a first for Willie. That was the first time that Willie had produced himself, with no outside help.”
Proving Willie right in every way, Red Headed Stranger sprang from the gate as a smashing success, vaulting to No. 1 on the Billboard chart for Top Country Albums. Even so, when he turned it in to the label, “they weren’t happy with it,” Raphael says. “They said, ‘This is a demo. Now go back and make us a record.’”
Willie stood his ground, pointing out to the label meisters that “my deal says I am in control, creative control. And you’ve got to take it.”
Penned in by the language of a binding contract, the label released it — albeit reluctantly. So, imagine the surprise, even shock, of the suits at Columbia when Red Headed Stranger exploded, becoming in Raphael’s words, “an iconic record not only for Willie but country music as a whole.”
— Michael Granberry
World Of Willie
The last five years have seen no less than nine studio album releases from Willie Nelson, still country music’s most prolific and creatively inspired artist. Every new record from his fruitful Legacy Recordings deal has brought a new collection of tasteful, thoughtful, Willie-fied covers and originals. A look at this decade (not to mention the dozens from the previous ones):
First Rose of Spring (2020)
A diverse studio album of originals and covers, including the Toby Keith-written “Don’t Let The Old Man In” and Willie’s take on “I’m the Only Hell (Mama Ever Raised)”
That’s Life (2021)
A dip into the American songbook brought us covers of classic tunes made huge by Frank Sinatra. Willie has shown time and again he’s aces at covering standards – “Stardust,” anyone?
The Willie Nelson Family (2021)
Old-time country and gospel, straight from the Nelson house to yours. Willie pulled in sister Bobbie and other family members to make a truly special recording of some of his favorite songs.
A Beautiful Time (2020)
This one won the Grammy for best country album, and for good reason — it’s got all the classic-Willie elements. Its biggest song was the tearjerker, “I’ll Love You Till the Day I Die” written by Chris Stapleton and Rodney Crowell.
I Don’t Know a Thing About Love: The Songs of Harlan Howard (2023)
Keep the country cookin’! Willie tackles the tunes written by his old friend Harlan Howard, including “Tiger By the Tail” and “Life Turned Her That Way.”
Bluegrass (2023)
Guess what style of music Willie plays on this one. … Good guess. It’s thrilling to hear our Red Headed Stranger mix it up with so many banjos and mandolins on “On the Road Again” and “Still Is Still Moving To Me.”
The Border (2020)
A calming, beautifully arranged collection of melancholy country. Buddy Cannon — Nelson’s top producer on most of his late-career records — co-wrote four of the album’s songs with Willie, including the gorgeous “Once Upon A Yesterday.”
Last Leaf on the Tree (2024)
Son Micah Nelson adventurously produced and collected the songs for this one, with covers of Beck, Nina Simone, Neil Young, and Flaming Lips.
Oh What a Beautiful World (2025)
Willie’s latest takes a bunch of Rodney Crowell’s great songs and puts Crowell on harmonies while our musical hero takes the lead. Crowell certainly doesn’t seem like he minds at all.
— Hunter Hauk
Mickey’s Memories
Not long ago, I had the distinct pleasure of spending a little time (albeit in a video interview) with the great Mickey Raphael. It is impossible to ruminate on the music of Willie Nelson and not think of Mickey, whose harmonica play has elevated Willie’s music since the early 1970s, soon after Mickey graduated from Hillcrest High School in Dallas.
Speaking of, how Willie and Mickey met is a yarn unto itself. Soon after becoming an alumnus of Hillcrest High in 1969, Mickey was spending his time at night playing music, assisting, for one, a terrific singer-songwriter from Oak Cliff named B.W. Stevenson, whose eponymous debut album was released in 1971.
A man in the crowd one night at a B.W. show just happened to be Darrell Royal, then the legendary head football coach at the University of Texas and a prominent amigo of one Willie Nelson. Mickey says Coach Royal approached him at the end of the show and told him he’d like him to meet his friend Willie Nelson — who at the time Mickey didn’t know. And the rest is history.
Fifty years after the release of Willie’s landmark album Red Headed Stranger in 1975, Willie and Mickey and second drummer Billy English (the brother of Willie’s primary drummer Paul English) are the only members of “Family,” Willie’s legendary touring band, who have not passed on. Mickey is 73, 19 years younger than Willie, who recently turned 92.
“I was never officially hired” by Willie, Mickey says with a chuckle, “but then, I was never asked to leave either.”
One more funny note about Mickey: In a conversation before that video interview, which was played on a movie screen at the 50th anniversary celebration of Red Headed Stranger in Garland, Texas, Mickey volunteered the information that he is not a sports fan. “I hate sports,” he said.
So, I admit it, I had to laugh when Mickey told me that he essentially owes his more-than-half-a-century career of playing with Willie to a man who just happened to have been one of the greatest football coaches ever. Go, Longhorns. You gave Willie Mickey Raphael.
— Michael Granberry
The Nelson Family Tree
While his late sister Bobbie was a longtime band member for Willie, we’ve seen more members of Nelson’s family step out and show their talents in recent years. Four daughters, Lana, Susie, Paula, and Amy Lee produce, perform, and host for various projects. Sons Lukas and Micah have carved out musical careers of their own, from working with Dad to releasing their own records. Granddaughter Raelyn Nelson even gets in on the family performances, apart from leading her own band.
— Michael Granberry
Get yourself a copy of the Red Headed Stranger issue on newsstands now and read the full cover story.
Illustration by Neil Jamieson
PHOTOGRAPHY: Getty Images, Alamy
