Willie Nelson: 'Success is a Blessing Rather Than a Curse'
by Dotson Rader
June 24, 2010
Parade Magazine

In these exclusive extras from PARADE's interview with Willie Nelson, the singer talks about his views on heaven, hell, racism and more...

His faith provided much of the strength and understanding he needed to face heartache and trouble.
"I was raised a Methodist. I moved from the Methodists to the Baptists, and then taught Sunday school in the Baptist church. I really had no real problems with anything except there were a lot of unanswered questions I had. I'd go to libraries and try to read up on different things. I read Edgar Casey and I read Khalil Gibran and I read different things with different ideas. I started thinking about those possibilities, about how could you be a born-again Christian and also believe in reincarnation and karma. It ain't that hard. How do you do that? You just do it."

Living a life with no regrets.
"My neighbor in Abbot, Texas, was a lady named Mrs. Pressler. My grandmother and Mrs. Pressler were great friends, and they talked over the fence every day. I had always heard from Mrs. Pressler and my grandmother that if you drank a beer or smoked a cigarette you're going to hell. And so I thought, if that were the case I was already on my way. Might as well lay back and enjoy it!"

His thoughts on heaven and hell.
"You know, heaven is in your mind and hell is in your mind. When we die, we'll come back and we'll pay for mistakes that we made here. And the things that we might have done well, we'll come back and get rewards for that later. I think this is where our heaven and where our hell is."

Although he was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 1965, his singing career was never big in Nashville.
"I didn't feel like I failed in Nashville. I felt like they failed to realize that I really knew what I was talking about. I was writing some pretty good songs and my singing wasn't that bad. I had a base in Texas. But the majority of the people that I recorded for and the publishing companies that I wrote for had heard stories about how popular I was in Texas. But they never left their desks in Nashville long enough to come by and check it out. Whenever I'd go down to Texas to play to thousands of people on the weekend, they didn't know anything about it in Nashville. So it was a big disconnect between Nashville and the rest of the world for me back in those days. So I felt like I had to go back out of Nashville in order to make those connections again."

He says there was a bias in the country music business against people who were different.
"The executives in music were a little prejudiced and biased about someone's appearance. They never stopped to think that maybe that long-haired hippie out there might have a little talent. There are a lot of people that hate change and want to keep things the way they've always been. Nashville was one of the last places to be lenient toward the hippies and the long hairs. That's one of the things that held it back."

Willie has endured a lot of criticism over the years for his embrace of unpopular causes and his willingness to fight for tolerance and fair play. One of his acts of courageous decency was his championing of the great, black country singer, Charlie Pride, who was the victim of racial prejudice. Willie recalls embracing Charlie Pride in front of unhappy white audiences.
"He's been treated unfairly. They didn't want him to sing there. And the owner of the club, who's a real good friend of mine, was a solid redneck, and he didn't want him there. So I kissed Charlie on the mouth. I was just trying to ease the tensions a little bit."

Although children of famous parents seem to get into inordinate amounts of trouble, Willie does not believe celebrity causes kids to go bad.
"I don't believe you can excuse kids for bad things just because they're children of a celebrity or have rich parents. It's a little too easy to write it off like that. I don't go for it. Nobody forces these kids to do anything. They're lucky to have some success in their house. Success is a blessing rather than a curse. If you already have someone who can open a door for you, that's better than waiting around for a door that never opens. My children are in music, like me. I can help them here and there. But I want them to be themselves, make their own mistakes, and move on. At the same time, I want to be there for them, too."

Embracing his country roots with his new album.
"I've done a whole lot of different kinds of albums, but I've always said that I was a country music singer and writer, which I am. I do these other things because I like to do them. This album to me is really country music. You can call it bluegrass, or Nashville, whatever you want. To me it is country music. That's why the title of the album is 'Willie Nelson's Country Music.' Country music is a steel guitar, a fiddle and mandolin -- that's the sound that I want to hear in country music."

At 78, he has no plans to retire.
"Retire? Why? I don't do anything now."

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