No one in country music typifies the outlaw attitude like Willie Nelson. Years ago. along with his singing pals like Waylon Jennings, he fearlessly pushed back against the powerful Nashville music establishment. Nelson never looked back or regretted his stance. He has always been exactly who he is as a person and an artist, and nothing else that anyone coaxed him to be. So when Willie Nelson advised another singer in the genre, Jamey Johnson, not to fret over what the “suits” in Music City thought, he was right on the money.
Nelson Told Johnson How To Regard Industry Execs
Jamey Johnson was a guest on the Like A Farmer podcast recently. He dished freely about what Nelson once said to him. What Nelson conveyed, in a nutshell, was that the top brass in country music were focused on mostly one thing – big-time commercialism. In other words, raking in profits. The bigger, the better. And that, to Nelson, should not be what great music is mainly all about. He understandably had and still has a very different perspective.
Johnson boiled it down to this. He shared on the podcast, “It was Willie that told me one time not to really dwell on the opinions of the suits in this business. They’re going to be around for a short time, but he said, down the line, they’re all going to be selling used cars or furniture or insurance or something else.”
He Also Told Johnson Not To Assume They’ll Be in Their Roles Forever
If you are getting the idea that Willie Nelson took a pretty dim view of the higher-ups in the business, you would probably be correct. Judging by his suggestions to Jamey Johnson, he was not too impressed.
Johnson also noted that Nelson cautioned him, “They’re going to get into some other line of work, and you’re still going to have to get on your bus and get to Ohio, because you’ve got a show. He said, ‘You’re the one that’s gonna be here in the end. None of them are gonna be around.’ You sit and watch these labels, and they change hands, and they keep changing hands.”
Jamey Johnson evidently listened to this mighty maverick. He has not looked back, either.