50 Years Ago: Willie Nelson Scores First #1 Song … At Age 42

They like to tell us that music is a young person’s game. By the time you’re middle age, you’re out to pasture and no longer relevant enough to attempt to launch a career, let alone a successful one. That’s the way it is now, and the way it’s always been. But there are rare exceptions to that rule of course, and Willie Nelson is the ultimate one.

By the time Willie minted his first #1 in country music, he’d already written numerous #1’s for others. He’d tried his hand at being a recording artist and performer, but mostly failed to find traction. He’d been hired and fired from the Grand Ole Opry. He’d been married and divorced. He’d retired from music, put on 40 pounds, and become a pig farmer.

Then when Willie’s house burned down in Tennessee on December 23, 1969, he moved back to his home state of Texas, and accidentally became a superstar at the age of 42. Willie Nelson had an entire life and career before the life and career we all know about today ever emerged.

Willie Nelson wrote “Crazy” for Patsy Cline and “Hello Walls” for Faron Young in 1961, both of which became major hits. He recorded plenty of singles and albums himself, but they all stalled, frustrating both Willie and his label. Like many performers of the time, Willie Nelson worked under the often oppressive thumb of producer Chet Atkins at RCA who regularly chose what songs he sang, who played on his records, and how they were produced.

Frustrated at the direction of his career, Willie Nelson wiggled out of his RCA contract, and eventually signed with Jerry Wexler at Atlantic who gave Willie full creative control. This resulted in the records Shotgun Willie (1973) and Phases and Stages (1974). But Wexler’s bid to start a country subsidiary of the rock label lost steam, and Willie moved on to Columbia, recording his magum opus Red Headed Stranger released in 1975.

Many of the stories about Red Headed Stranger are well-known, including how Willie recorded it on a shoestring budget in Garland, TX as opposed to using a big Nashville studio. When Willie Nelson turned the record in, the label told him it sounded unfinished, like it was a collection of demos. Willie insisted it was done, and off to the vinyl press it went.

But Red Headed Stranger didn’t fly off the shelves at first. It was really the single “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain” that awoke the world to Red Headed Stranger, and to Willie Nelson.

Just like Willie Nelson, “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain” was already well-aged when it was released. It was written by Fred Rose, who was famous for being a writing partner of Hank Williams. As a recording, it was first released by Elton Britt in 1946. Roy Acuff would also record the song in 1947, and Hank Williams did a live version of it in 1951.

Donn Reynolds, Ferlin Husky, Slim Whitman, Gene Vincent, Bill Anderson, John D. Loudermilk, Hank Snow, and Conway Twitty all recorded “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” before Willie Nelson even touched it. It was a country music “standard,” meaning a song many performers of the era would learn, perform, and often record. But it was Willie Nelson’s stripped-down and simplified version that he embedded in the story narrative of the conceptualized Red Headed Stranger that touched a nerve, caught fire, and raced up the charts, mostly under its own volition.

Willie’s “Blues Eyes Crying In The Rain” was viral hit before anyone knew what a viral hit was. On paper, the song should have never worked. Willie Nelson wasn’t just a has-been, he was also a never-was. The song didn’t have the slick production most country hits had at that time. But all of these things are ultimately what allowed the song to resonate with the public who went out to purchase the 45 single, and demanded their local radio stations play it.

Released during the peak of the “Countrypolitan” era, Willie Nelson’s “Blues Eyes Crying In The Rain” was akin to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It broke the overproduced fever, and ushered in an entirely new era. Outlaw country was born. And on October 4th, 1975, it became Willie Nelson’s first #1 song.

Today, few remember the early versions of the song by others, or the failures of Willie Nelson’s career before it was released. Now Willie Nelson is not just a living legend of country music, he’s revered worldwide. But it all started with one simple recording of an old country music standard. Red Headed Stranger is where the world learned about Willie Nelson. But “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” is where the world learned about Red Headed Stranger. And the rest is history.

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