WILLIE NELSON
This month Stuart Ryan gets to grips with the quirky chord and lead guitar style of a Nashville legend, and one of the original ‘country outlaws’.
Willie Nelson named his Martin N20 nylon-string ‘Trigger’ after cowboy Roy Rogers’ horse!
KEVIN KANE / GETTY IMAGES
ABILITY RATING
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ Moderate
Info
Key: C Major
Tempo: 92 bpm
https://bit.ly/3QPJWk7
Will improve your
Jazz chord voicings
Soloing with chords
Use of passing tones
You may not realise it, but Willie Nelson is one of the music world’s true ‘hitmakers’, the legendary songwriter behind Patsy Cline’s Crazy, and many more. A performer in his own right he has been crafting hits for over 60 years. Nelson started his career as a songwriter and DJ in Texas in the late 1950s, and while he found success early on it’s almost unbelievable to think several major country artists had already turned down Crazy, a track Nelson wrote in 1961 while he was still struggling in the music industry.