I once spent a hugely enjoyable hour interviewing Willie Nelson. Now, from Brian Fairbanks’s Willie, Waylon, and the Boys: How Nashville Outsiders Changed Country Music Forever (Hachette), I also discover how the maverick musician got the nickname “Shotgun Willie”. After Nelson’s daughter Lana was allegedly beaten up by her husband Steve, Nelson “slapped his son-in-law senseless and threatened to drown him Steve then pleaded, ‘Don’t hit me, Willie, I got anxiety.’” The tragi-comic feud escalated, however, when Steve returned with a rifle and fired at Nelson, who got out a shotgun and blasted back at Steve’s departing truck. “One shot blew out a tyre,” Fairbanks records. “Luckily, no one was injured, and the police declined to press charges. Interrogated about the incident, Nelson deadpanned: ‘He must’ve run over the bullet.’”
Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA is 40 years old this month and this triumphant album is explored in Steven Hyden’s There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’ and the End of the Heartland (Hachette). I particularly enjoyed the story of Brian De Palma’s music video for the album’s hit track “Dancing in the Dark” (the one where the Boss dances with a young Courteney Cox) and how it replaced the original, which was evidently so daft that Springsteen walked off the set during filming and never came back.
Music PR guru Alan Edwards’s memoir (reviewed in full below) is part of a busy month in terms of music books, including Ann Powers’s in-depth study Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell (HarperCollins). As well as the Mitchell tome, I would recommend Nige Tassell’s Searching for Dexys Midnight Runners: The Last Gang in Town (Nine Eight), in which the author tracks down all the members of the 1980s chart-toppers who played for Kevin Rowland’s band. Rowland wanted Van Morrison to be their producer and the Irishman was persuaded to see them rehearse at Birmingham’s Cedar Club. As tenor saxophonist Geoff Blythe recalls: “He stood at the door for literally about two seconds, turned around and walked back out. The door shut and that was that. It was the funniest thing. It was like a cowboy movie. I guess he just hated us.”
