Good News in History, April 29 - Happy 84th Birthday to Willie Nelson

by Guest Sat Apr 29, 2017 2:51 pm

Happy 84th Birthday to Willie Nelson, the prolific American music icon and outlaw who wrote his first song at age 7. He scored his first number one hit in 1975 with a cover of ”Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”. Nelson’s version of ”Always on My Mind” won three Grammys in 1982 and he collaborated with Waylon Jennings on the first ever platinum album in country music history. The two continued to produce hits like “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” As a songwriter, Nelson penned the phenomenal Patsy Cline hit, “Crazy”, and for the movie Honeysuckle Rose he wrote ”On the Road Again”, which became his signature song. WATCH a cool tribute video… (1933)

His many recording partners over the years included Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Wynton Marsalis, Neil Young, and even First Lady Rosalynn Carter on the lawn of the White House, singing “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother”. (He also topped the charts with Julio Iglesias in “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.”) Nelson is included by Rolling Stone in both its 100 Greatest Singers and 100 Greatest Guitarists lists.

Good News in History, April 29 - Happy 84th Birthday to Willie Nelson Willie-Nelson-750px-FB-326x183

Good News in History, April 29 - Happy 84th Birthday to Willie Nelson Willie-Nelson-750px-FB-326x183

He launched the critically acclaimed television concert series Austin City Limits for PBS in 1974 and has penned or co-authored several books and autobiographies, including, The Facts of Life: And Other Dirty Jokes, a collection of musings from the road.

Nelson is active in a number of issues, including LGBT rights, the humane treatment of horses, reforming marijuana laws, and the advocacy of bio-diesel, which he manufactures under the name Bio-Willie. He co-founded Farm Aid with Neil Young and John Mellencamp in 1985 to assist and promote family farms.

Nelson, who has a fifth-degree black belt in martial arts, currently lives in Maui, Hawaii, in a largely self-sustaining community where all the homes use only solar power and neighbors include Kris Kristofferson, Woody Harrelson, and Owen Wilson. After repeated illness through the years, Nelson, who had been a heavy smoker, underwent stem-cell therapy in 2015 to improve the state of his lungs. His famous braids were sold for $37,000 at auction two years ago after the death of Waylon Jennings. Nelson had cut and presented them as a gift to Jennings during a party celebrating his sobriety. (More about Willie on Wikipedia)

MORE Good News on this Date:

Joan of Arc arrived to relieve the Siege of Orleans, turning the tide against English domination in France during the Hundred Years War (1429)
Musician and composer Duke Ellington was born (1899)
The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 entered into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons by its signatories (1997)
New Zealand allowed its first civil union marriage to take place (2005)
The Royal Wedding: Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, married Catherine “Kate” Middleton in a wedding at Westminster Abbey (2011)

Good News in History, April 29 - Happy 84th Birthday to Willie Nelson Operation_Manna_-_Many_Thanks_In_Tulips-150x150

And, on this day in 1945, Operation Manna began. At the end of World War II, Lancaster bombers of the Royal Air Force dropped 6,680 tons of food into parts of the occupied Netherlands to feed starving people during the Dutch famine. With the consent of occupying German forces, almost 3300 sorties were run in nine days. In addition, 400 American B-17s dropped 800 tons of K-Rations. This photo, taken over Holland, captured the “Many Thanks” spelled-out in tulips as a message to their pilot saviors

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/events060429/