Shotgun Willie, & Guns As Part of the American Experience
Willie Nelson has come to be known as one of our generation’s greatest pacifists and men of wisdom. Beyond his contributions in country music, his unique American story from growing up in the Depression, to attaining superstardom, to his unique perspective on life and championing of worthy causes, Willie Nelson will go down as one of America’s most noble men.
But Willie was not always the gentle, grandfatherly type that we know today. He grew up in a rough time and place. His music career started out on the rough streets of Ft. Worth, where bands had to play behind chicken wire to protect them from flying bottles and knife fights. His long-time drummer and manager Paul English was hired because he was a street gangster and could make stingy club owners pay up. Willie also served in the Air Force, and taught Sunday School, and sold encyclopedias door to door.
Willie’s life has run the full gamut of the American experience. That’s why we love him and give him a pass even when we may not agree with some of the things he says or does. Or at least most of us do. Some country fans got sideways with Willie a while back when he made some statements about gun control, saying, “I think a lot of guns, there’s no need for civilians to own those. Those are for military.” But before those fans jump to conclusions that Willie is some limp-wristed softy that has no respect for the 2nd Amendment, maybe they should look back at a couple of incidents in his past.
The Great Ridgetop Shootout
It was in the aftermath of an incident that would later be remembered as the “Great Ridgetop Shootout” that Willie Nelson got the nickname “Shotgun Willie.” Ridgetop was the house Willie lived in just outside of Nashville in the late 60’s. When it burned down in 1970, it stimulated Willie’s move back to Texas. In 1969, Willie and his first wife Shirley separated, and his second wife Connie moved into Ridgetop. Willie and Shirley had three children, and right before Christmas in 1969, Willie’s youngest daughter Susie told Willie that his oldest daughter Lana was being physically assaulted by her husband Steve Warren.
“I ran for my truck and drove to the place where Steve and Lana lived and slapped Steve around,” Willie recalls. “He really pissed me off. I told him if he ever laid a hand on Lana again, I would come back and drown his ass. No sooner did I get back to Ridgetop than here came Steve in his car, shooting at the house with a .22 rifle. I was standing in the door of the barn and a bullet tore up the wood two feet from my head. I grabbed an M-1 rifle and shot at Steve’s car. Steve made one pass and took off.”
But this wasn’t where the incident ended. Willie drove back to Steve and Lana’s to confront Steve again, but he was gone and had kidnapped their young son Nelson Ray. Lana also told Willie that Steve was looking to “get rid of him (Willie) as his top priority.” So what did Willie do? He drove back to Ridgetop and waited for him.
“Thinking Steve would come to Ridgetop to pick me off about dusk, I hid in the truck so he couldn’t tell if I was home. We laid a trap for him. I had my M-1 and a shotgun. He drove by the house, and I ran out the garage door. Steve saw me and took off. That’s when I shot his car and shot out his tire. Steve called the cops on me. Instead of explaining the whole damn mess, the beatings and the semi-kidnapping and shooting and all, I told the officers he must have run over the bullet. The police didn’t want to get involved in hillbilly family fights. They wrote down what I told them on their report and took off.”
Gun Battle at the Birmingham Coliseum
As time went on, Willie Nelson mellowed, but didn’t stray too far from his gun-toting past. After playing a concert in Birmingham, Alabama in the late 70’s, Willie and the band found themselves in the middle of a gun battle in a six-story parking garage as they were unloading gear from the stage. Though the story is centered around guns, it also illustrated Willie’s budding status as a peacemaker.
“All of a sudden we hear ‘Kaboom! Kaboom!'” Willie’s long-time stage manager “Poodie” Locke recalls. “It’s the sound of a .357 magnum going off in the parking garage. The echoes sound like howitzer shells exploding. It’s kind of semi-dark, and this guy comes blowing through this parking deck…now here comes this bitch with a fucking pistol. ‘Kaboom!’ She’s chasing this motherfucker. It sounds like a fucking war.”
At the time, Willie Nelson and most of his band and road crew carried pistols as a matter of habit. The scene became chaotic as the shooting happened right as the crowd from the show was filing out into the parking garage.
“People are piling out of the show and they start scattering,” Poodie continues. “Here come the cops from every direction. They’re flying out of their cars, hitting the parking deck, spread-eagling the whole crowd–‘On the deck, motherfuckers!’–because the cops don’t know who is shooting at who…All these cops are squatting down in the doorjambs, turning people over, frisking them, aiming guns at everybody, just waiting for the next shot to be fired.”
“And here comes Willie. He walks off the bus wearing cutoffs and tennis shoes, and he’s got two huge Colt .45 revolvers stuck in his waist. The barrels are so long they stick out the bottom of his cutoffs. Two shining motherfucking pistols in plain sight of a bunch of cops nervous as shit. Willie just walks over and says, ‘What’s the trouble?’ Well he’s got some kind of aura to him that just cools everything out. The cops put up their guns, the people climb off the concrete, and pretty soon Willie is signing autographs.”
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Quotes from Willie: An Autobiography
March 5, 2013 @ 1:22 pm
And folks, nobody is going to change their mind about the gun control debate by anything you post in this comments section. That’s not the point of this article. So let’s try and show some respect for everyone’s opinions and keep the comments on topic and only broach the political subject where it is relevant.
Please and thank you.
May 25, 2022 @ 8:17 pm
I think that story just shows that some people have the ability to be responsible gun owners. I have taught gun safety courses for concealed carry and it continually amazes me how many people should not own guns.
March 5, 2013 @ 1:42 pm
Is his autobiograhy worth reading? Are any of his books?
March 5, 2013 @ 1:47 pm
I love it personally. I think it is the best book on Willie. Some of the best parts come from others talking about Willie. Some other books like “The Tao of Willie” and “Roll Me Up And Smoke Me When I Die” are good reads, but are not as comprehensive.
March 5, 2013 @ 1:53 pm
Irony is Willie Nelson having used a bona fide military rifle to defend his home and family. The AR-15 that has been demonized by Piers Morgan (and Willie, as a guest on his show) only *looks* like a military rifle. That M1 that Willie actually WAS a rifle used by our military. Cool article all the same, thanks!
March 5, 2013 @ 3:49 pm
Guns are on every van and tour bus on the road today with touring musicans riding in it. Guns are still quite the necesary peice of equipment. If you want a fun look, albeit dramatized and funny, at the music bussiness in the 70’s watch the old Willie and Kris flick songwriter. Yes Willie Nelson an autobiography is the best of the Willie books by far.
March 13, 2013 @ 2:26 pm
“Guns are on every van and tour bus on the road today with touring musicans riding in it.”
Uh, no.
And by the way, Ridgetop isn’t the name of a house, it was and is the name of the town where Nelson lived up around here.
March 14, 2013 @ 9:19 am
In my experience dealing directly with the touring artists that played the club I was talent buyer for yes everyone that I dealt with had a weapon in their touring vehicle be it a van or a bus. Why because bands getting robbed is an age old problem. While that might not be “everyone” out there at least on the Texas/Red dirt scene that I dealt with carring a gun in the vehicle was very normal.
March 14, 2013 @ 6:25 pm
Just a guess, but I’m going to guess that “the Texas/Red Dirt scene” encompasses a considerably smaller number of people than “every van and tour bus on the road today.”
And let me just add that among the musicians I know who do take a weapon with them on the road, it’s not so much out of a concern for being robbed as it is out of a desire to have a means of “persuasion” available when needed for dealing with less-than-honest talent buyers.
In other news, it looks to me like the author of this piece is suggesting that anyone who favors any kind of limitation at all in gun ownership is a limp-wristed (<-nice little homophobic phrase, there, by the way) softy unless he's personally participated in multiple shoot-outs – a belief which may not be universally shared.
March 14, 2013 @ 6:53 pm
I believe he was being ironic. But you what they say about irony. Not everybody gets it.
March 15, 2013 @ 8:41 am
I beleive I specified in my prior response theat”everyone” may be overstated. Yep there is a long history promoters not wanting to pay up and yep guns are a handy tool in that case. However, if you have a good booking agent your getting half your guarntee up front back with a signed contract that provides the artists a lot more protection than in days past. I’m in no means suggesting that if you don’t want to cary a gun you are somehow “limp wristed”. Just saying it’s been my experience that the carying of a firearm, at least in the scene I was a part of, was extremely common. Not political in the least simply obeservation.
March 15, 2013 @ 4:13 pm
TX Music Jim, I was speaking of “Trigger”‘s “limp wristed” comment; sorry for not attributing it clearly enough.
Jack Williams, no irony there. “Trigger”‘s point is that people who take it, based on Nelson’s comment with respect to restricting the availability of certain weapons, that he’s a “limp wristed softy” are wrong, not because taking the position doesn’t brand one as a “limp wristed softy,” but because Nelson shot at people himself on a prior occasion. It’s a pretty dubious argument to begin with, and using a phrase that not infrequently has a gay-bashing tinge to it doesn’t really strengthen the point any.
March 15, 2013 @ 5:36 pm
I really think you’re reaching, Jon. There are other explanations, but I’ll leave you to your preferred one.
March 5, 2013 @ 4:49 pm
Guns are ok when willie wants to use them, but now that hes old he wants to take my guns… where are you on this one Triggerman? didnt you have an article just recently about what waylon had to say after the columbine shootings? Irregardless if you dont want a gun, dont buy one… No different then people coming on this website and bitching about what Triggerman has to say. If you dont like it dont come to this website.
March 5, 2013 @ 5:22 pm
I’m not anywhere on it. I’m just telling some cool stories for folks that have never heard them and trying to let folks decide for themselves.
March 5, 2013 @ 5:25 pm
Fair enough… by the way it was a cool article
March 5, 2013 @ 11:29 pm
he ran over the bullet……. thats when I broke . lol
March 6, 2013 @ 6:55 am
Cool article. I’m not into guns all that much, but I have a lot of respect for guns and the 2nd Amendment and Willie Nelson.
March 7, 2013 @ 12:45 am
Here is a true story that illustrates a good example of how gun control has affected women:
http://senate.michigan.gov/committees/files/2012-SCT-NAT_-03-22-1-02.PDF
It is also an example of why I support the death penalty for rapists. Criminals who commit atrocities such as this are human refuse and they deserve to die.
March 7, 2013 @ 2:37 pm
I look to artists for their music, their literature, their art, etc. and not for political wisdom.
If their thoughts meld with mine, so much the better, but if they are marxists, anarchists, maoists, etc., I don’t care.
What has always made me sad about Willie is his dope-smoking.
I couldn’t imagine being his age and still getting high. It has to be a sad existence.
I am not against it – it just seems like such a waste of a person’s life to be chronically high. Maybe Willie doesn’t smoke that much pot, but it is always the impression I have had.
Musically, I would probably put him at the top of the food chain during my lifetime (since 1957) and close to the top for the past century.
March 8, 2013 @ 10:30 am
Willie Nelson is and was a badass. I may not agree with him politically on some things, but I really don’t care. As long as he keeps singing good music I’ll love him til the day I die.
March 9, 2013 @ 9:08 am
Funny how long after Trig says to keep the gun conversation relevant to the topic that the conversation turns to guns. People just have to talk about their guns.
March 11, 2013 @ 9:12 am
Great stories, Trigger. Thanks for sharing ’em.