A comprehensive Willie
Nelson bio has been long overdue, and Joe Nick Patoski's survey fits the bill.
It's just under 500 pages without notes; that titular "epic" refers to the book
as much as the man. But things get repetitive, as roughly half the book
consists of enumerated lists of who played with seemingly every incarnation of
the Willie Nelson Family, dubious genuflections before Nelson as "a deep
thinker who put his philosophy on the table in three-minute melodic chunks for
all to ponder," and every-other-page reminders of how much fun Texans have with
drugs and sun. Still, Patoski's clunky but functional prose eventually delivers
on its title, delivering a slickly reductive compression of the colorful
highlights of Nelson's life.
Patoski diligently begins
with Nelson's grandparents, but his real interest leapfrogs the book forward to
the '50s within 50 pages, as Nelson hits the road for Texas' rougher
roadhouses. Colorful tales of Fort Worth's premier venues—many of which
put chicken wire in front of the stage, to protect musicians from the
inevitable flying beer bottles—give a good sense of the town's forgotten
past "as a little Chicago." From then on, it's one long forward rush to
Nelson's position as superstar/icon. Patoski's awe of his subject means the
book always feels breathless, never giving a sense of Nelson's ups and downs;
it's all buildup to the inevitable.
Patoski doesn't skimp on
brief, informative sketches of Nelson's pot misadventures, how his key albums
were recorded, or the dirty details about his contentious relationship with the
coke-addled Waylon Jennings. Hero worship leads Patoski to downplay Nelson's
negligent parenting and husbandry as the hapless excesses of a spirit too big
for this world, rather than a man who took every excess he could get away with:
Nelson may be the face of outlaw country music, but he always has to be the
good guy to Patoski, who morally flattens him into a can-do-no-wrong legend.
Reducing Austin to a series of drug stories interspersed with cameo appearances
from legendary UT coach Darrell Royal, Patoski falls into a Texas-centric
version of baby boomer self-mythologizing, with country music, beer, and sun
taking the place of protest marches and Woodstock. His counter-mythology is
just as smug and self-regarding as the conventional narrative, with Nelson as
its fulcrum. Still, dedicated fans will find as complete an arc of Nelson's
life here as they're likely to ever get.