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One by Willie: Daily Summaries Delivered
by John Spong
Each episode, music writer John Spong talks to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song they love, leading to highly personal looks at the way Willie has shaped their lives and made the world a better place. Check us out on instagram: @onebywillie and our website onebywillie.com
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- 2 days ago47 min
Ali Siddiq on "Midnight Rider"
Comedian Ali Siddiq zooms in on Willie Nelson’s 1979 cover of the Allman Brother’s tale of a desperate outlaw’s life on the lamb, “Midnight Rider.” It’s a song Ali used to blast in his Monte Carlo during his days as what he calls “street pharmaceutical rep” in Houston’s Third Ward, as detailed in his groundbreaking 4-part comedy special Domino Effect. And it gets him thinking aloud on American culture’s enduring fascination with gangsters and outlaws…plus such Willie-adjacent lessons as the significance of working every angle to control your destiny, and the importance of taking the gifts that save you--like comedy and music--and paying them forward to save others. With cameo appearances by Aretha Franklin, Martin Lawrence, and Willie’s old drummer Paul English—who Ali can tell, just from looking at one photo, was an actual outlaw.
- 2 weeks ago1h 0m
George Saunders on "Pancho and Lefty"
Celebrated author George Saunders digs deep into one of the best-loved songs not just in Willie Nelson’s catalog, but in all of American music, Townes Van Zandt’s legendary tale of betrayal, “Pancho and Lefty.” It is, in many ways, a song full of mystery, and George, who also teaches Russian short fiction at Syracuse University’s acclaimed creative writing program, walks us through it verse-by-verse, unlocking the secrets in the song’s story; the way Townes, Willie, and Merle Haggard made us care so much; and what the song tells us about what it means to be human. All that, plus the way hearing “Hello Walls” as a little kid crawling around under his parents’ poker table awakened him to the importance of elegance in art—with cameos by Dostoevsky, Chekov, Jeff Tweedy, and Ernie Banks.
- May 6, 202646 min
Tami Neilson on "I Thought About You, Lord"
Americana star Tami Neilson—a New Zealand-based singer-songwriter and, essentially, adopted member of Willie Nelson’s family—talks about a deep cut off his sublime 1996 album Spirit, “I Thought About You, Lord.” It’s a hugely important song to Tami, who first came to Willie through his gospel side as a young girl barnstorming the US and Canada with her country-gospel family band, The Neilsons. And ‘family’ is the strong undercurrent running through this episode, as Tami talks about sharing the Luck Reunion stage with Willie just a week after Sister Bobbie died; the sisterly bond she’s formed with his wife, Annie; and the way Willie subbed in for her late father, Ron Neilson, on their beautiful 2022 duet, “Beyond the Stars.”
- Apr 29, 202655 min
One by Willie x Nashville Now: Happy Birthday, Willie Nelson!
With Willie Nelson turning 93 today, One by Willie hooks up with Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now and its host, RS Head of Country Joseph Hudak, for a special birthday collab episode. We’ll open with a look at how OBW host John Spong managed to turn listening to Willie Nelson records into a full-time job, plus the unique, almost metaphysical way that individual songs connect fans not just to Willie, but to people in their own lives. And then, proving that point, we pivot to Hudak’s favorite Willie song, “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,” which takes Joe back to being a kid in rural Pennsylvania watching The Electric Horseman on bootleg HBO with his mom.
- Apr 22, 202642 min
Emmylou Harris on "Till I Gain Control Again" (special Willie's birthday episode)
In another of our annual, Icon-on-Icon birthday tributes to Willie, 14-time Grammy winner and Country Hall of Famer Emmylou Harris talks about a song she sang every night with him when they toured together in the 70s, “Till I Gain Control Again.” It was, of course, written by one of her and Willie’s all-time favorite songwriters, Rodney Crowell, and it gets Emmy thinking about being a young artist watching the deep, almost spiritual connection Willie forms with his fans—plus the way she and Willie had to swim against the Nashville tide to pull country music back to its roots, the day Elvis died, the making of Teatro…and the death-defying, high-wire act of trying to sing harmony with Willie Nelson.
- Apr 8, 202647 min
Matt Berninger on "All of Me"
Matt Berninger, lead singer and lyricist of beloved Brooklyn rock band The National, talks about Willie’s 1978 cover of “All of Me.” It was the third single off his dad’s favorite Willie record, Stardust, an album Matt loves so much that, when he went to record his first solo album, Serpentine Prison, he enlisted Stardust producer Booker T. Jones to produce, and Willie’s harmonica player, Mickey Raphael, to play harp. We’ll get into all that, plus the pre-Willie history of “All of Me,” the decidedly unorthodox sessions in which Willie and Booker recorded it, and the healing power of music…with brief cameos by Roberta Flack, Billie Holiday, and Lester Young, and a full-on co-star role for Mickey, who sat in on the interview and provided his own detailed memories of creating Stardust.
- Mar 25, 202651 min
Jamey Johnson on "It Always Will Be"
Million-selling country star Jamey Johnson, one of the finest singer-songwriters alive and a man generally considered the walking embodiment of Outlaw Country, talks on the title-cut to Willie’s 2004 album, It Always Will Be. The song’s a simple, hymn-like ballad, and maybe not the first thing you’d think of when Outlaw comes up, but that will change when Jamey explains what the term—and this wonderful song—mean to him. From there he describes poker, chess, and domino games; huge figures in Willie’s life, like longtime stage manager Poodie Locke and legendary songwriter Hank Cochran; and what Willie means to him, both as a friend…and as an example of how to live your life.
- Mar 11, 202641 min
Kenny Chesney on "That Lucky Old Sun"
Kenny Chesney, a Country Music Hall of Famer and longtime Willie friend, fan, and collaborator, talks about Willie’s 1976 cover of “That Lucky Old Sun.” That beautiful, hushed track, which opened the album The Sound in Your Mind, was one of Willie’s first covers from the Great American Songbook, setting the stage for his Stardust triumph two years later...and hearing it now takes Kenny back to an old tour bus, when he was a young artist studying Willie’s singing. From there he gets into the duet the two cut on the song in the mid-2000s—which ended up being a pivotal record for Willie—plus what it was like to produce Willie's 2008 album, Moment of Forever, and the way Willie helped inspire the artistic change that grew Kenny into Billboard’s Top Country Artist of the 21st Century.
About One by Willie
Each episode, music writer John Spong talks to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song they love, leading to highly personal looks at the way Willie has shaped their lives and made the world a better place. Check us out on instagram: @onebywillie and our website onebywillie.com
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