Willie Nelson

Just for a second, try imagining a world without Willie. Right off the bat, you’d have to eliminate the entire outlaw country movement he pioneered, both alongside rebel pal Waylon Jennings, with ramblin’ roughneck rip-’em-ups like “Good Hearted Woman,” and on his own with the greasy gut-string get-down of wild-eyed rides like “Whiskey River.” Now rip a whole chapter out of the classic-country songbook — not to mention short-circuiting the momentum of peak-period Patsy Cline — by subtracting Willie-penned standards like Patsy’s signature song, “Crazy.” While you’re at it, rewrite pop history too, erasing GRAMMY®-hoarding Top 5 blockbuster ballads like “Always On My Mind.” Now breathe a sigh of relief and realize that a Willie-less world was only a dream.

In Next Steps, Willie writes the songs that make Nashville news — then turns around and sings the hell out of them too.

Even if he never recorded a note, Willie Nelson would be considered Nashville’s ultimate ambassador, as the towering tunesmith who helped put some of Music City’s finest on the mainstream map, from Patsy Cline to Faron Young. But once Willie himself sings ’em, they stay sung. Faron had his biggest hit ever with “Hello Walls,” but listen to the way weepin’ Willie brings out the lonesome sound bouncing around that romance-ravaged room. “Funny How Time Slips Away” has been a country, pop, and R&B hit for everyone from the Spinners to Narvel Felts, but it never sounds as worldly wise as when Willie’s playing the bittersweet balladeer. And even outside his own superhuman songbook, Nelson’s jazz-juiced phrasing found him falling into the biggest success of his career finessing standards like “All of Me” from the Stardust album.

In Deep Cuts Willie walks it like he talks it, with cowboy capers and outlaw escapades.

Willie’s been on a first-name basis with the world through five decades, and from his braided ponytail to his battered guitar and free-wheeling ways, he’s become almost as famous for his mythos as his music. But it’s all based on the life he sings about in these songs. The dusty mystery man riding in out of nowhere in cowboy ballad “Red Headed Stranger” gave Willie his nickname. Nelson chronicled the bad-boy lifestyle that fueled his outlaw image on the rough-and-rowdy travelogue “Me and Paul.” But the man who began his most career-defining album with the line “Shotgun Willie sits around in his underwear” over a loping, lowdown country-funk groove has never taken himself too seriously either.

Willie didn’t call one of his most famous albums Phases and Stages for nothing. With a career approaching the half-century mark, just one chapter of his story would be enough to fill out most artists’ entire saga. From songwriter-to-the-stars to outlaw country renegade to Tin Pan Alley balladeer and beyond, Willie Nelson has become one of America’s true musical treasures — in his seventies, he has proved to be the kind of sustainable energy source scientists would surrender their lab coats for. But we’ve scaled Mt. Willie from the base to the peak, returning rucksack overflowing with honky-tonk hits, country-pop crossover smashes, suave jazz standards, and boundary-busting duets with everyone from Norah Jones to Julio Iglesias. Now if anyone ever asks you the notorious question “What would Willie do?” you’ve got 75 awesome answers at your fingertips.