Willie Nelson Interview

Very rarely in life, if we get the chance to meet people we admire, do they live up to our expectations. Willie Nelson couldn’t have been cooler. My opportunity to interview him came when he was in South Florida for a concert with Bob Dylan on May 26, 2005 at Fort Lauderdale Stadium.

Much of that tour featured them performing in old baseball stadiums around the country, which Willie told me was Dylan’s idea. Fort Lauderdale Stadium had been built in 1961 as a spring training facility for the New York Yankees, then later the Baltimore Orioles. It was also used by minor league teams. As I mentioned during the interview, they were also scheduled to play later that year at Ray Winder Field in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, which was a minor league stadium for the Arkansas Travelers. It would be closed the following year and eventually torn down. Fort Lauderdale Stadium was demolished in 2019, so the concerts were a special way of highlighting these historic ballparks.

At the time of the interview, I was working for the Miami Herald, which had a partnership providing local news to NPR station WLRN-FM 91.3. Talking with one of my musical heroes was a surprise assignment that morning from morning anchor Rhonda Victor Sibilia, so needless to say, I was very excited! I had already purchased tickets to that night’s concert, but she noticed while going through the newspaper’s planning for the day that the business section was preparing a story about Willie’s push for more use of biodiesel fuel. So I stopped by to produce a radio version of the story.

Pulling into the parking lot of a hotel where Willie and his entourage were staying in Plantation, Florida, I saw three tour buses, and recognized two of his longtime band members, harmonica player Mickey Raphael and guitarist Jody Payne, walking into the hotel. I parked and almost immediately, there was Willie, who I spoke with alongside print reporter Patrick Danner and photographer Candace West.

Willie said that as he tours the country, he has to find people along the way to refuel his buses. In this case, it was Jim Robertson of BioFuels America in Fort Lauderdale, who pulled alongside the buses in a pickup truck with a large tank in the back. As WIllie explained in the interview, which you can hear below or read in the transcript, he felt the use of biodiesel rather than regular diesel fuel was a good source of revenue for farmers, was better for the environment, and could help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He then filled his three leased buses with about 200 gallons of biodiesel fuel.

AUDIO: Interviewing Willie Nelson on May 26, 2005 about his use of biodiesel while refueling his tour buses in Plantation, Florida. We also discussed the tour he was on with Bob Dylan, playing mostly in old minor league ballparks.

INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:

Michael Hibblen: Describe what we’re doing here.

Willie Nelson: Well, we are seeing a tour bus being filled with biodiesel, and that’s all we burn in our tour buses is 100% or whatever blend we can acquire in biodiesel.

MH: And why is this important for you?

WN: For a lot of reasons. First of all it’s fuel that can be grown by farmers, and I’ve been involved with the farmers for a long time.  I see it as a way for those guys to have a better life and at the same time it’s good for the environment. It also reduces our dependency on energy from around the world where we could become more self-sufficient.

MH: You’ve got kind of a business interest in this as well, describe that.

WN: I have a company called BioWillie which so far we have one pump (laughs) in Texas somewhere and we hope to have two or three before it’s over. But what we’re trying to do is mainly draw attention to biodiesel, whether it’s mine or yours or anybody’s, because right now the only difference between yours and mine would be the quality, and we’d have somebody checking on that to make sure it’s the best quality.

MH: Is there any challenge in getting fuel everywhere you go?

WN: Well it is, because it’s not everywhere, and the demand is growing and so the supply will pick up, I’m sure. There are more and more people thinking about it. I was talking to the TravelCenters of America and they have several areas, several truck stops, and we talked to them several months ago, and they’ve been trying to put it all together and now it looks like that they’re going to be doing some things. Loves truck stops are going to be doing some biodiesel. So it’s going to pick up and more and more people are going to learn about it.

MH: Can this run in regular diesel engines?

WN: The original diesel engine was designed to run on peanut oil. So, for all these years, yeah, a diesel engine will run on peanut oil, soybeans…

Miami Herald business reporter Patrick Danner: Do you own the tour buses?

WN: No, these are leased from here in Florida, the Florida Coach company — that’s the Calhoun Brothers. And they’re also interested in putting some biodiesel tanks around on their properties and also interested in placing them around the country where they can be able to find biodiesel.

PD: These are your full-time buses, I presume?

WN: Yeah.

PD: So you use those all around the country?

WN: Yeah.

PD: The gas station that you own, I say “gas station,” but the biofuel station that you own, where in Texas is that?

WN: It’s Carl’s Corner, Exit 374 off of I-35 East south of Dallas, between Dallas and Hillsboro — Waco, down in that area. It’s a truck stop that’s been there for a long time. My friend Carl Cornelius, well the joke is that I won it in a poker game and now I’m trying to lose it back. But it’s a great spot to promote biodiesel because we have a pump there, and we’ve got some BioWillie there, and a big sign, and we’re doing a lot of business with XM [Satellite] Radio, [radio host] Bill Mack talks to the truckers, and Eddie Kilroy and all those different guys talk about biodiesel. So we’re getting a lot of good free publicity from people around the country. And we’re in the process of putting entertainment in the back, and broadcasting live from XM Radio there, and putting in studios. We have a grand opening on the 3rd of July — 1st, 2nd and 3rd of July. There’s a chili cook-off and a barbecue and a truck-pullin’ and all kinda things goin’ on.

MH: How’s your tour with Bob Dylan going?

WN: Well, last night was the first night this year and, of course, last year we did several days and it’s always good.

MH: What’s the… you’re playing a minor league ballpark mostly. How did that happen?

WN: I think it’s a great idea. I’m not sure. I’ve been telling everyone it was Bob’s idea, but it’s a good one. People enjoy coming to these facilities, the price is right, and children under 12 are free. It’s a community gathering-type thing.

MH: Is it any different than playing regular venues? Are the acoustics a little different?

WN: Well, maybe a little different, but with good sound, you can play large areas.

MH: A lot of these places are pretty old. Some of them, I know the place in Little Rock, Arkansas — my hometown — where they just announced that you’re going to be playing, it’s probably going to be torn down by the end of the year. So, these are a lot of funky old eclectic ballparks.

WN: Well, you know, hopefully, some of them will hang around for next year.

MH: Is it entirely ballparks you’re going to be playing in?

WN: Not really. On the 4th of July, for instance, we’re gonna’ be playing in Fort Worth, Texas, in downtown North Side Fort Worth, but most of them are.

MH: How often are you playing these days?

WN: Every day. It seems like I’ve been busy every day. We’ve had days off from the tour, but I’ve been doing other things. I did a day in the studio with Booker T. I did a video with Jessica. A couple, three days of shooting a movie, then went to Jamaica and did two videos down there and then flew in last night to Fort Myers. So, I’ve been working every day. Even though I’m not singing every day, I’ve been doin’ something.

MH: I heard you weren’t able to play guitar for a little bit last year.

WN: I had a four-month period there where I couldn’t play. That was interesting. [Laughs.]

MH: How are you doing now?

WN: Doing fine, yeah. Playing’ too much now.

MH: You just needed a little rest time?

WN: Well, I had to have a carpal tunnel operation, and that took a while to get over it. They first said six weeks, but they didn’t mean guitar players. It took a little longer.

MH: So, how’s Dylan to perform with? You’ve played with him plenty of times before.

WN: He’s great. He’s a lot of talent. A great writer. A lot of fans.

MH: You’re both people that a lot of people thought wouldn’t be around this long.

WN: I thought the same thing. [Laughs.] I’m a little surprised that any of us being around this long. But here we are, you know, and we still wake up on the right side of the ground and everything’s good.

I had always heard that Willie was a nice guy, but I was amazed just how cool he was. Many times when you meet people you admire, it can be a let down when they’re in a hurry or just don’t live up to your expectations. But after meeting Willie and spending about a half-hour together while interviewing him and watching while he fueled his buses, I became an even bigger fan. After turning off my recorder, I figured Willie would leave. But he just dug his hands deeper into his pockets and starting talking about how nice the weather was and that he was looking forward to playing golf that afternoon. I thought to myself, wow, Willie Nelson is making polite conversation with me about the weather.

As a kid, I remember during family trips that my mom would break out her Willie Nelson 8-track tapes. At that age I didn’t really appreciate his music, but albums like Red Headed Stranger and Stardust would later become favorites of mine.

 

Photographing Willie Nelson in Concert

Seven years later I was covering the 2012 Johnny Cash Music Festival, an annual event to raise money for the restoration of Cash’s boyhood home in Dyess, Arkansas. Willie Nelson was among the headliners that year. He and Cash had been good friends and performed together in The Highwaymen. I’d seen maybe a dozen concerts of Willie’s over the years, but this was the only time that, as a member of the media, I was able to be in the pit with my professional camera in front of the stage. Below are a few of my photos from that night, Oct. 5, 2012 in the Convocation Center at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.