Charlie Sexton on "I Let My Mind Wander"
The Austin producer, bandleader, and guitar hero discusses the reasons he loves the early sixties demo for “I Let My Mind Wander”—and how much his old boss, Bob Dylan, loves Willie.
By John Spong
Charlie Sexton performs on October 07, 2023 in Austin.
Gary Miller/Getty
Charlie Sexton’s been a fixture of the Austin music scene for almost as long as Willie. Way back when—before Charlie’s high-profile stints as lead guitarist for Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello; before he produced Lucinda Williams’s exquisite 2001 album Essence; before he cofounded early nineties blues-rock supergroup the Arc Angels; and even before his mid-eighties moment as a new-wave heartthrob on MTV—he was known around town as Little Charlie, the self-taught guitar prodigy who’d first performed publicly in 1978, when he was invited onstage at the Continental Club at the tender age of nine.
(Read a transcript of this episode below.)
On this week’s One by Willie, Charlie goes deep into the weeds on one of Willie’s early-sixties Pamper demos, “I Let My Mind Wander,” a cut that he considers the epitome of old-time jukebox country. But one of the things that makes this conversation so special is that we recorded it just a couple blocks from the Continental in one of Willie’s old haunts, Arlyn Studios, which is co-owned and -operated by Willie’s nephew—and sister Bobbie’s son—Freddy Fletcher, and his wife Lisa. Back in the early seventies and eighties, that space was the center of Willie World. Willie had his office there. The Austin Opera House next door was his home base for concerts and the preferred Austin venue for touring acts from all over the world. And surrounding it were some 230 flophouse apartments known lovingly by locals as “the Willie Hilton,” because Willie owned all of it.
That was the world in which a teenage Charlie grew up, and he’s going to walk us through a lot of those memories—plus give a sense of just how much Bob Dylan loves Willie Nelson.
One by Willie is produced by John Spong and PRX, in partnership with Texas Monthly. The PRX production team is Jocelyn Gonzales, Patrick Grant, Pedro Rafael Rosado, and project manager Edwin Ochoa. The Texas Monthly team is engineer Brian Standefer, producer Patrick Michels, and executive producer Megan Creydt, with graphic design by Emily Kimbro and Victoria Millner. And Dominic Welhouse provides invaluable research and editing help.
Transcript
John Spong (voice-over): Hey there, I’m John Spong, and this is One by Willie, a podcast in which I talk each week to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they really love.
This week we talk to guitarist, producer, and all-around,rock-and-roll man-about-town Charlie Sexton about another of Willie’s old Pamper demos, “I Let My Mind Wander,” which is a song that Charlie calls a perfect example of old-time, steel-guitar driven, jukebox country.
Now there are about a dozen different ways you might know Charlie. He’s logged years as Bob Dylan’s lead guitarist and, more recently, played the same role with Elvis Costello. He produced Lucinda Williams’ exquisite 2001 album Essence. And he led the early nineties blues-rock supergroup,the Arc Angels with Stevie Ray Vaughan’s old Double Trouble rhythm section. But he’s actually been a fixture of the Austin music scene almost as long as Willie himself, having first played publicly in 1978, as a self-taught nine-year-old guitar prodigy invited up onstage at the famous Continental Club.
And that’s one of the things that made this conversation so special. We recorded it together, just down the street from the Continental, at one of Willie’s old haunts, Arlyn Studios, which is owned and operated by Willie’s nephew and sister Bobbie’s son Freddie Fletcher and his wife Lisa.
Well, back in the late seventies, that space was the capital of Willie World. Willie had his office there. The Opry House next door was his home base for concerts and the preferred Austin venue for touring acts from all over the world. And surrounding it were some 230 flophouse apartments known lovingly by locals as “the Willie Hilton”–and that’s because Willie owned all of it.
That’s the world the teenage Charlie grew up in, and he’s gonna walk us through it, plus give a sense of just how much Bob Dylan loves Willie Nelson. Oh, and if you hear a little music bleeding into our talk, that was Jimmie Vaughan in the room next door cutting a record with the Antone’s All-Stars. Once we were finished, Charlie grabbed up his guitar and went and sat in on the session.
So let’s do it.
[Willie Nelson performing “I Let My Mind Wander”]
John Spong: When you played at Willie’s big ninetieth birthday party last year…
Charlie Sexton: Yes!
John Spong: . . . supporting, playing along with Edie Brickell, I saw some red-carpet footage, and a reporter put a mic in your face and said, “Talk about one of your favorite Willie songs,” and you actually said this a year and a half ago, you said, “‘I Let My Mind Wander’ is one that I’m really fascinated by right now.”
Charlie Sexton: I’m not making it up. I mean . . .
John Spong: Well, what’s so cool about “I Let My Mind Wander”? What turns you on about that song?
Charlie Sexton: Okay. Part of it has become . . . that same day on the carpet, that’s when I discovered what I believe to be the truth about Willie Nelson.
John Spong: Okay.
Charlie Sexton: And I think I stumbled, because it really kind of just came to me when they were asking, because everyone was doing their stock “Oh, welcome to the show,” and, “Oh, great. Oh, lots of stars.” Those situations, sometimes, are somewhat insincere-feeling. But what occurred to me“—and I’m going to go off on tangents, so you have to, excuse me; that’s the way my crazy mind works—
John Spong: I’m game.
Charlie Sexton: …what came to me, that I realized in that moment, I did say “I Let My Mind Wander” as being one of my favorite songs, if not in a weird way, my favorite one . .
John Spong: Okay.
Charlie Sexton: But what I did realize at that moment, and I think I might’ve mentioned it, but I really thought about it after, I was like, “Oh my god, that’s it.” Because I really believe, like, in Texas, [and] I mean, I could say “in the world,” but in Texas, like the world, we have the elements, wind, rain, so on and so forth. Well, we have an extra element in Texas, and that’s Willie Nelson. And it has to do with, I think, a lot to do with my particular age, growing up and moving to Austin in 1972, which is kind of like, it’s right in that pocket when it was all happening. And you know the exact dates; I didn’t do that part of the research. I mean, I did read the thing about the pig-farming that didn’t go too well [for Willie], but you can’t blame him. It happens.
I digress, but I’ll come back. I really believe that to be the case, in a weird kind of way, even if you’re not aware of it, that if you’re of a certain age or generation, Willie is like one of the elements of Texas, like wind and rain and, you know what I mean? Because his songs have just been there. They’ve been shooting out of radios, out of pickup trucks, out of fancy cars, out of jukeboxes, cover bands, his shows. I mean, it’s funny, the strange sort of how big a part he’s been in my life in so many weird ways over the course of, whatever, how long my life has been so far.
John Spong: That’s cool.
Charlie Sexton: So I can speak about it first-person and say that, you know.
John Spong: It’s on the air here. It’s on the air here. And there’s very few people even on earth that have been around when there wasn’t a Willie Nelson. So it’s like those songs have always been with us.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah! Yeah. And it’s even, it’s all the characters that work for him. And even, for instance, even where we’re sitting right now. I mean when I was young, young, younger, this is . . .we’re right at the heels of what they called the Willie Hilton. Phase two of the Willie Hilton. This was the kind of,more funkier part. And this studio, the Opera House, I mean, all that. I mean, it’s just . . . .I am biased. Because I kind of grew up in Austin, for the most part.
John Spong: Well, I’m going to get into the Willie Hilton, but before that . . no, seriously, because my other favorite name I hear for it is the Willie Arms, and I love both of those. But this song, what do you dig about the song “I Let My Mind Wander”?
Charlie Sexton: Okay. Well, it’s this strange, one of the things I really love about it, because when you think about Willie for the last, whatever, thirty years, twenty years, people are just, they’re like, “Oh, he’s just this…”
John Spong: Yeah.
Charlie Sexton: “ . . ‘in love with a good-time’man.” He’s just that, like, “Everything’s cool. Everything’s just be cool. Oh, yeah.” He’s really, I mean, he’s a human being and all the things, human experience that happens to any human, he’s always had this sort of good vibe like, “Hey, Willie.” And he’s a kindhearted, sweet guy. I mean, I’ve got enough personal experience being around him. And in moments when, it’s just like that Texas hospitality thing, a sweetness to him. I mean, his sister had it. He has it.
I just took my mother to see him on Mother’s Day, or the day before, when he played. She called, and she goes, “Hey, you know what I really want?” I called her, “We want to take you somewhere.” And she goes, “You know what I really want? I just want to go see Willie.” I said, “Okay.” And she said, “Well, your brother said he could call the bass player for Robert Earl Keen, and maybe they could get . . ” And I’m like, “Listen, everyone’s calling the bass player for Robert Earl Keen to get into the show. I think I can sort this out.” So I just made a quick call, and they said, “Oh, absolutely. Come on, bring your mom.” And so we were there, and Annie and Willie made sure that, “Oh, bring your mom over to say hi to Willie before he goes on.” And he was just so, so sweet, and it just meant the world to her.
John Spong: But wait, what’s that got to do with with “I Let My Mind Wander?” He’s too nice a guy to come up with a song that maybe has a little darkness in it?
Charlie Sexton: Oh, no. Well, that’s what I’m saying. If you go back to the early days . . . and the reason I love that song so much is because, as much as I love songs and music and all that stuff, I also love production and the capture, the documentation of moments. And when I listen to that song, the first time I heard it, I’m in this weird little room, and I’m just like going, “Yes, I agree with you. Yes. I’m, .yeah.” I mean, how it’s written, what he’s saying—and it is so hauntingly stark, in its old-time, jukebox country. . . . I mean, it’s got the usual, “Okay, the steel starts it off, and then when we get to the bridge . . . ” you can see the steel player taking a sip of coffee while the piano [singing]. It’s a classic arrangement situation for country music. And I told my friend Katie last night, I said, “If this song was on a jukebox that I knew where it was, and it was somewhere I would go or had been to, I would go there frequently, and I would play it at least once every time I walked through the door.”
But I guess the point I’m making is, similar . . . I think in that era, there was a lot of, I mean, he was in a deep well of, he wasn’t “Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah-ing,” as the stolen quote [goes]. I can’t remember who Townes stole it from, but about “two kinds of music: ‘Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah’ and the blues”–which is like really funny and kind of true; that early Willie stuff, it’s some . . . and he’s got this amazing, earthy quality about the way he writes songs. And particularly some of those where it’s just straight to the bone, and not overly poetic or abstract or anything. He is just saying it: and you’re handing me, oh, here it is . . .
John Spong: And then there it is. We’re going to, this is . . .
Charlie Sexton: Yeah. And even his delivery on that version. Okay. Okay. This is the Pamper….so that was the publishing company that Ray Price was part of.
John Spong: Yeah.
Charlie Sexton: That led to him cutting this song.
John Spong: . . . that gave him his job when he got to Nashville. And this is one of the famous Pamper Demos.
Charlie Sexton: Oh, that makes sense. Okay. Wow.
[Willie Nelson performing “I Let My Mind Wander”]
Charlie Sexton: That steel. Oh my god. …Oh my god. To me, that’s like the perfect jukebox tune. I mean, it’s just like . . . and his vocal is just like, amazing.
John Spong: And that’s his vocal on a demo! They’re trying so hard, and…
Charlie Sexton: Well, it’s also in probably a wonderful RCA 44 ribbon mic, and it’s like probably a Gates, or a tube desk, or a whatever.
John Spong: Well shit, I don’t know, but I’m almost sure that would be Jimmy Day on steel.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah, that makes sense.
John Spong: And Pig Robbins on piano.
Charlie Sexton: Piano, okay.
John Spong: They did almost all the Pamper demos.
Charlie Sexton: Were they up on staff for [Pamper]?
John Spong: It’s one of the things that’s so great about the Willie demos, and it’s why it’s so wonderful to go back and find them; everybody loved him. 1961, ‘62 . . . of course, they all already loved him. They had so much respect for the songs, and then for just him, that the A team wanted to play on his demos with him.
Charlie Sexton: Well, you know what? And I think when you’re dealing with the . . . I mean with all due respect, the machine, the Nashville machine, and with all due respect to Chet Atkins, ‘cause Chet Atkins is amazing.
John Spong: Yeah. You’re a guitar player, you know who Chet Atkins is.
Charlie Sexton: I know exactly who Chet Atkins is. But it was that Nashville . . . the Nashville Sound. You had to . . . this was a demo, so he got lucky, and he escaped the choral singers and the string arrangements, which later they released the Naked Willie version, because I remember Mickey Raphael told me, he goes, “Oh, we were working these things, and we’re stripping all the strings off and taking it back.” Well, it didn’t particularly help that version, because it still had that sort of dancing, sort of ascending musical aspect of it. Which is like I said when I first arrived, I said, that could have been Willie who thought, “I want to try this on it.” Which is a whole other conversation about what we love about particular records. And I have a little experience with somebody else that wrote a bunch of songs and made a bunch of records, where people will be just fanatical about, “Oh my god, that version. I wish that we could hear it like that again. Or that. Oh, wow.” Well, you have to think about it. This song’s probably 3:20-or-something minutes long?
John Spong: Oh, it is 3:40, which . . .
Charlie Sexton: . . . is kind of long. Yeah.
John Spong: Well, it’s super-long for back then, and I think it’s because the players were having such a good time with him.
Charlie Sexton: Well, yeah, they built the ride. I mean, they finished the song, and it’s like, “Oh, take a ride with me, and then we’ll come back in on the bridge. Okay, cool. Although we got to finish with that last verse, because it really is [a] summation of the . . .” So that ended up for an extra eighteen seconds or whatever. But the point I’m making is that any genre of records, whether it’s country records or Rolling Stones or whatever it is, you’re like, “Oh my, that version is so good.” That’s only . . . that’s three minutes and 48 seconds of that guy’s life, in that room with those guys, on that particular, probably either morning or afternoon.
John Spong: Yeah. It was either 10 [a.m.] to 1, or 2 [p.m.] to 5.
Charlie Sexton: But the years that went up to writing these words, you know what I mean? He was writing a song. But it’s more than just—you know, about thirty years ago, I gave up on the fact that if it rhymes, then it’s a song. It needs a little more to it than just that. And he obviously is one of the kings of that.
John Spong: It’s funny because on this, the verses in this are . . . they’re not quite dark, but there’s not a lot of hope. “I let my mind wander . . . ”
Charlie Sexton: Well, yeah, I mean I . . .
John Spong: “. . . and what did it do? It it just kept going on to you.”
Charlie Sexton: Well, okay, I’ll tell the truth, I think the reason I love the song so much, is cause I identify with it so much. I was like, “Yep, that’s what happens, Willie.” And that version, it’s like, as much as I like the sound of records or words or melody, music, all the things that make it up, I really also love what I call the Stanislavski, method-acting sort of thing. It’s when, because in one of his books on acting, I think it’s called An Actor Prepares, or something, he talks about when the performer comes onstage, you want to start off with a tiny pinhole of light. Right?
And then it just surrounds the performer on the stage. And then what his job is [is] to make that light expand beyond him and into the audience, and they all become part of that moment. And so it’s like, I mean I can see a million things when I listen to that song. I can see various rooms, all the shadows, all the pinholes of light, all the weird wind on the drapes, whatever. I can hear that old nine-hundred-pound fan in my grandparents’ trailer in East Texas. I can . . . and I can go on forever about what it kind of evokes.
John Spong: The bridge. I love the bridge . . .
Charlie Sexton: Ha!
John Spong: . . . because that’s where it starts to the ascending thing you’re talking about, I think, right?
Charlie Sexton: [Singing] “I try to keep my mind busy.”
John Spong: It’s so optimistic. That’s what makes this a great Willie song for me—at least as a guy that doesn’t know how to play anything. It starts with that kind of dark, there’s no hope or whatever. And then, [singing] “But I try to keep my mind busy,” and he tries to . . . it’s almost optimistic-sounding. He’s trying to introduce a little hope, and then he goes right back to . . .
Charlie Sexton: It makes perfect sense.
John Spong: . . . [singing] “but I let my mind wander.” He completely pulls the rug out from under you.
Charlie Sexton: But “invariably,” I mean, also “invariably” doesn’t end up in a lot of songs.
John Spong: Not in country music in 1962. And with that, to really nerd out, and I apologize, but the conflict here is between the heart and the mind, and one . . .
Charlie Sexton: Well, yeah. It ain’t just here! What are you talking about?
John Spong: Yeah, but one “wonders”. . . and one “wanders!” It’s the most simple little bit of wordplay.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah.
John Spong: You know, you work with Elvis Costello too, and he’s good at the wordplay. That’s a nice little, very subtle, oppositional counter . . .
Charlie Sexton: Yeah, exactly. The wander . . . yeah. Well, that’s what happens when your mind wanders. Unfortunately, it’s, you know . . . No it’s, for this kind of song, it’s kind of, for me, it’s perfect. And he’s . . . my god, it’s amazing how good he was at that.
[Willie Nelson performing “I Let My Mind Wander”]
John Spong: Since that’s the version that you love so much, and that you feel is perfect, let’s do get a brief bit of the actual commercial release from . . .
Charlie Sexton: Okay. Well, I told you . . .
John Spong: . . . from 1967 [correction: 1969]. I got it right here, man.
Charlie Sexton: Well, I know, but all these things with this, I told you earlier this week, and I listen to this song pretty regularly, and I thought, “Oh, well, I’m driving and I’m going to just pull it up on my phone,” and this other version, I’m like, “What the hell is this?” And it was like, it kind of made me mad, you know?
John Spong: On Willie’s behalf?
Charlie Sexton: Well, the thing is, but I don’t know . . . then I had to really check myself because, and I did look into this, because I was, like I mentioned before, I have some experience with somebody, and this goes back to that . . . How did this other ascending melodic thing happen? Maybe Willie liked it? Or maybe it was between Chet and Bergen White, because this Bergen White character . . .
John Spong: He’s the string dude, right?
Charlie Sexton: He’s an arranger, but he did all kinds of crazy things. He was the stand-in for the Jordanaires, like when one of ’em couldn’t make it.
John Spong: Oh, wow.
Charlie Sexton: Which makes sense, ’cause he knows harmony and things like this. He had this really odd, cool version of “Duke of Earl,” in 1976. When I saw that, I went, like, “‘Duke of Earl?’ I love that song.” I was [singing], “As I walk alone…” Yeah, he had that, and he was an arranger on Tony Joe White, “Polk Salad Annie.” He was involved with Tony Joe.
John Spong: Oh, s—.
[Bergen White performs “Duke of Earl”]
Charlie Sexton: Well, he was a guy. He was a cat . . .
John Spong: Clearly.
Charlie Sexton: . . . so it made sense that he was one of the Chet calls. He was in the book, I guess. But then he had some weird, his big hit was what they called “easy listening.” He had a record called For Women Only. It was like one of those sixties, seventies, kind of . . .
John Spong: What’d you pull up when you Googled that?
Charlie Sexton: Yeah, exactly. So he was obviously very, very talented, and we can listen to that. And I just had to, because as I told you, I was like, it really put me off when I first . . . I’m like, “This is not the song. This is not how it goes.” And then suddenly I’m one of those people yelling in the audience, and “Hey man, it’s my darn song. I can do what I want with it. It’s my football. I’ll kick it anywhere I want.”
John Spong: Yeah. Well, it’s weird because yeah, it is . . . this is with Chet. And it’s Willie’s last record with Chet, because I think Chet kind of threw up his hands after this one and switched him over to Felton Jarvis, who had done all the Elvis records, or who had started doing the Elvis records.
Charlie Sexton: Well, I think Willie did everything he was supposed to do. He combed his hair, he put on a jumper.
John Spong: I always actually take issue with folks who say that his Nashville output wasn’t any good, or that he wasn’t doing what he wanted to do, or that they were bullying him, or whatever. I think he wanted to be a star, and I think he did whatever they asked, ’cause they knew how to make people stars.
Charlie Sexton: Well, the thing is, that’s the way it worked then.
John Spong: Yeah.
Charlie Sexton: I mean, every record had an arranger.
John Spong: Yeah. Well, yeah. And so, since the people listening aren’t going to know, this is what we’re talking about.
[Willie Nelson performing “I Let My Mind Wander”]
Charlie Sexton: [singing] “I let my mind wander I . . . doo-doo-doo-doo-haaaa” . . . and Willie’s like he’s bringing it, he’s singing, “Oh, yeah. I’m singing out. I’m happy now.”
John Spong: What is that, is it a harpsichord? What all is going on in there?
Charlie Sexton: That’s Charlie McCoy on vibraphone.
John Spong: Oh, okay.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah, because, I was like . . . but it said Jerry Reed’s on the session, too, playing guitar.
John Spong: We’ll see if we get to that.
Charlie Sexton: And there’s the choral singers, kind of. That’s more “ooey” than full-on choral.
John Spong: That’s fine. But it’s weird . . .
Charlie Sexton: No, I mean, all due respect to Chet and Bergen White and all that stuff, but I mean, I don’t know. It really, when I heard that the other day, ‘cause I’d never heard that version . . . and I was like, I mean, I was about ready to, “Well, we going to step outside over this one, son.”
John Spong: So, it’s cool. That’s why we’re lucky that those demos have made their way out. Do you know much of the story about how it is that we even know of the demos?
Charlie Sexton: I have no idea. ‘Cause, I mean, my super-sleuth, it reached a pretty big . . my gumshoe business reached a pretty quick dead-end last night when I got into all the German and Japanese and Italian . . .
John Spong: Completists? All the German completists?
Charlie Sexton: Well, I couldn’t translate it…
John Spong: …and you can’t read it?
Charlie Sexton:. . . so I’m like, okay, what? They probably figured it out. The Japanese, I would put it to them. They’re like, “Oh, yes.”
John Spong: It’s cool. That’s why when you brought this up and you introduced me to this box, I dunno if you have one CD or all three of those.
Charlie Sexton: Oh, this is the whole Ghost.
John Spong: Yeah. It’s 54 songs. And so the deal with the Pamper demos is, in 1970 at Christmastime, Willie’s still in Nashville, right? And it’s Christmas, and his house burns down. I’ve read on Christmas Day, I’ve read Christmas Eve, within a couple days . . .
Charlie Sexton: What year?
John Spong: ‘70.
Charlie Sexton: Okay.
John Spong: So that’s the impetus for getting here. And so when his house burns down, the next day, his dad, Ira, is going through the ashes, I think, down in the basement maybe, because he would record stuff there. And he found . . .
Charlie Sexton: A bunch of boxes!
John Spong: . . . reels . . .
Charlie Sexton: Yeah.
John Spong: . . . with 21 songs.
Charlie Sexton: That’s seven-and-a-half little . . .
John Spong: Yeah. And so he takes ’em with him to, well, he just keeps ’em. And then when Ira dies five or six years later, they find those boxes in his closet, with his stuff.
Charlie Sexton: In Ira’s closet?
John Spong: Yeah. And what had happened is, by then Willie had hit, and he’s the biggest deal in country music, arguably. He doesn’t own any of his back catalog, though. So when people go looking for his old stuff, he’s not going to make any of that money. So he starts letting these trickle out, and that’s the beginning.
Charlie Sexton: That’s when he became, eventually, associated with Masked Weasel Records?
John Spong: Oh, tell me. What’s that?
Charlie Sexton: That’s who released this!
John Spong: Oh, okay. So we’re getting . . .that’s years down the road.
Charlie Sexton: Well, I know. I know. But we can’t not do this without giving a shout out to Masked Weasel Records. Because, when I want my next record deal, I’m going to Masked Weasel Records. I mean, all this RCA and Warner Brothers. I mean, ah, who needs that?
John Spong: Who needs that?! Or hell, maybe that’ll be the band name, the Masked Weasels.
Charlie Sexton: What’s that A&R guy look like?
John Spong: So, wait. So, scoot forward, and this is the part that I only learned after this, and I got really excited. So this stuff that’s called The Ghost, this three-disc box on Masked Weasel, was originally released in 1983 on three vinyl albums.
Charlie Sexton: Oh. And then the whole thing came out in 2005.
John Spong: Then it’s . . . because they . . . it just keeps getting repurposed every now and . . .
Charlie Sexton: Sure, sure, sure.
John Spong: And then a lot of the times, honestly, somebody in Willie World . . . Larry Trader, working the golf course, will lose a $10,000 bet on a putt, and he needs to pay that. And so Willie will hand him some demos to like . . .
Charlie Sexton: Well, that’s the Willie way. He just . . .
John Spong: Yeah. It just works. But so, in ‘83, they released all these, and the deal was, and I don’t have this quite nailed down yet, but the punch line will give it away . . . the tax troubles were starting to happen already. And he’s already dealing with . . .
Charlie Sexton: Of course, they were.
John Spong: . . . the IRS.
Charlie Sexton: They just didn’t show up to Pedernales in . . .
John Spong: Yeah, in ‘89. Yeah. They’d been looking for a while . . .
Charli: My friend Chris Layton was there doing a session . . .
John Spong: Oh, wow.
Charlie Sexton: When they showed up.
John Spong: In ‘89? Or ‘88, whatever that . . . ?
Charlie Sexton: And they walked in and said, “Okay, everybody out.” I mean, it’s like the full-on . . .
John Spong: Oh, wow.
Charlie Sexton: . . . with the windbreakers and the whole thing.
John Spong: Oh, wow.
Charlie Sexton: “Okay. Everyone out. Cease. IRS.” And he’s like, “W-w-w-what? This is my . . . we’re just doing a session. We don’t know any . . . we’re not . . . ” And I guess they made him go out, and he came to him, and he goes, “Okay, you have ten minutes to go get your drums and get out of here.”
John Spong: Wow.
Charlie Sexton: So Chris ran in, packed his drums and split. Anyway, side note.
John Spong: Yeah, an interesting one. Well, so in ‘83, Willie decides to put out these demos, and a lot of ’em were stuff that’ve been put out before, but a lot hadn’t. And that’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful to you for introducing me to this, because I’ve been trying to put all the Pamper demos together, and I think there might be a total . . .
Charlie Sexton: Well, you weren’t aware of this box set?
John Spong: Un-un. Un-un. And I didn’t, I had not heard, I didn’t have probably 20 of the songs that are on it, of the 54. And so now I believe there are 73 Pamper demos, and I’m up to 59 . . .
Charlie Sexton: Oh, wow.
John Spong: . . . and I’m fired up about that.
Charlie Sexton: God, that . . . I’m sorry, [but] as a writer, as someone that tries to write songs, and I’ll say, “try” by comparison. [shrugs]
John Spong: Right?
Charlie Sexton: Seventy-three?!
John Spong: Demos! Yeah. Seventy-three.
Charlie Sexton: Well, I mean, I know you got a quota when you sign a publishing deal. I mean which, I know about that, because I’ve not met it, when I had one. But uhm, oh that just, yeah, sometimes you just want to go like, “Okay, yeah, I know how to dig a ditch. I can do that.”
John Spong: “But I can’t dig one quite like that, can I?”
Charlie Sexton: Well, no, I mean, the thing about a ditch is, it’s hard for people to argue that you’ve not done what you’re supposed to. “You want it bigger? Or deeper? Wider? Okay.”
John Spong: Well, he put this out with a songbook that was how to play it on vocals, how to sing it, vocal, guitar . . .
Charlie Sexton: Yeah, with song tabs.
John Spong: Yeah, tabs. But it was released by an organization that Willie created called “Tax Planners and Associates.”
Charlie Sexton: Oh!
John Spong: Because he was anticipating some problems, I think, and needing to pay it off. And so he gets this out there for that reason, kind of like when he does the IRS Tapes . . . to get out of that jam.
Charlie Sexton: Wow.
John Spong: To get out in earnest.
Charlie Sexton: Well, I mean, yeah.
John Spong: I love that.
Charlie Sexton: Most people know, before the wolf’s at the door, they know he’s coming down the lane, the path. Wow. This, I mean, I think anyone that loves Willie, they need to find this.
[Willie Nelson performing “I Let My Mind Wander”]
John Spong: So then talk about this place, because…so you get to Austin in ‘72 . . .
Charlie Sexton: Well, ‘cause I didn’t do all my homework, but that’s about the time he’s showing up.
John Spong: Well, that is, but I mean more specifically, Arlyn, and the Willie Hilton, and the late seventies in Austin, and all that . . . and for people that don’t know, there was 14 acres here . . .
Charlie Sexton: Yes.
John Spong: And it was a bunch of apartments, and this was Willie’s office . . .
Charlie Sexton: And the other side, behind were the Continental Club . . . .that was, to me, the more sort of jewel part. That’s where they would’ve been like, “This is what we’re going to do. And then it’ll be across Academy, over here by Arlyn, the second phase of it, or whatever it is.” Because the ones that were over there behind the Continental, it looked like Atomic Ranch magazine. It was all these really cool, mid-century modern . . . they had a little carport.
John Spong: Yeah. Because they were like a bunch of little bungalows . . . well, that’s the thing, this had all been a motor court, and supposedly the largest one in the state, with [230] rooms, and some were efficiency rooms.
Charlie Sexton: Well, I think that was the more motor-court thing, and this was the more sort of . . .because then right here . . .
John Spong: Behind us.
Charlie Sexton: Pretty much where there’s that big dip and it’s a floodplain. And that’s where, there was, there’s a gentleman from Lubbock, Texas, named Randy Banks. Randall Conway Banks was his name. And Randy played with Ponty Bone, a bunch of people. He’d been around. He’s one of the first songwriter guys I got to hang out with. And he wrote some beautiful songs. He wrote a song called “Where’s My Love,” that—actually, I think that’s the one that Ely cut with Linda Ronstadt. It’s a beautiful song.
John Spong: Oh, wow.
Charlie Sexton: Anyway, Randy lived over here. He had one of these other Willie Hilton places, but this was the more, kind of strange, it had this massive shag carpet room that . . . he lived there, and then they would rehearse there. And that’s where he first, I remember, I was just trying to figure out how to play guitar.
John Spong: This is ’70- ?
Charlie Sexton: Would’ve been ’77.
John Spong: Okay.
Charlie Sexton: And then we were there late one night and with the whole Lubbock crew, and he came up and he had a Danelectro, and he goes . . . and he came out, I was just by myself, and I was trying to plunk around and had it through the amp, kind of turned down, like [singing] “Dink-dong, dink-dong” . . . I didn’t know what I was doing. And he just came in and grabbed it, and he turned the amp all the way up to [whatever] and went “RHAAAAAAA!” And he goes, “That’s called feedback.” And I’m like, “Cool.” Then he just left. I was like, “Okay.”
So, I digress again. But yeah, that was one of the Willie . . . and Randy lived over there, [and] his brother Alan, lived at one of the fancy ones behind the Continental. That was like, that’s . . . when I think of the sort of mid-century modern Willie Hilton . . . it was Alan’s. Alan had a Les Paul. [And] had the fancier place over there, which wasn’t that fancy, but Randy lived in this one that was probably full of mold already because it was in a floodplain, and shag-carpet band rehearsal room, with a little crash room, with maybe a kitchenette?
John Spong: Oh, man.
Charlie Sexton: Not sure.
John Spong: So Willie buys it in like ‘77. And part of the deal is he wasn’t playing the Armadillo anymore, so he needed a venue of his own. And so that’s the Opry House, which is on the other side of us here.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah. A lot of history over there.
John Spong: But he filled all these apartments, and it was a lot of efficiencies, but then also . . . because it was like one-room, kitchenette…
Charlie Sexton: Studios.
John Spong: Yeah, studios, studio apartments, basically. But they were all $65 a piece. And as I understand it, they all fill up with who you would expect to fill [it] up. It’s songwriters, it’s guitarists, it’s dope dealers, it’s strippers, it’s rodeo clowns. And you are ten years old and running around through all that, right?
Charlie Sexton: Talking about it that way, it’s kind of like Walmart and all that? Superstores? And Willie created it, you know? You could get you a song written, get you a guitar player, there’s probably a stripper, or a dope dealer, or a something. Some guy, someone would make a poster for you, artists. It was just sort of like one-stop shopping.
John Spong: It’s all right there. It’s all right here. And isn’t it like dirt roads, much of it and stuff?
Charlie Sexton: I mean, by the time I was really coming around, they had put some asphalt down in places, but . . . Oh yeah, I know it. Yeah. Very well. Yeah, that’s it. And it always seemed like so much bigger than it was, the Opera House. And it sounded so good in there. Really low ceiling. It’s really a lot smaller than you thought, than I remembered it. It’s like the usual kid thing. “Wow. It was so big!” And you get there, it was like some, “That car you had was so big!” “That was a Fiat.”
John Spong: When you become a fan of his music, when does he go from being a voice you hear on the radio, and in the air, to really realizing, oh, there’s genius at work here. This is special.
Charlie Sexton: Well, that . . . obviously that comes with age, when you start to pay more attention to things, you know? And like, I mean, I remember the first . . . trying to learn how to play guitar, because I grew up around him. I had these uncles that played, family reunions . . . we’d be at every show. I mean, we saw Willie in town, growing up. We saw, I saw Frank Zappa at the Armadillo. I saw, I mean all kinds. I mean, it was just constantly music around. And I really grew up with it. It’s just, I really go back to that element thing. It was just always there. So you don’t think about breathing most of the time, until you can’t.
John Spong: Right.
Charlie Sexton: You know what I mean? You don’t think about the wind, until it gets cold and you put a jacket on. It just, it’s happening. And for me, it was always, he’s just always been with us. And thank god; that’s one of the few times I don’t pine over, “Oh, I wish I was born at another time.”
John Spong: Uhhmmmm . . .
Charlie Sexton: Actually, it just blew my mind, because I think one of the last times I was actually in this room, Bobbie was there, Bobbie Nelson.
John Spong: Oh, wow.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah, we were working on the Billy Joe thing.
John Spong: Oh, right.
Charlie Sexton: I think we were working on this song that George Strait ended up singing. So we had Warren Hood in here doing fiddles.
John Spong: Oh man.
Charlie Sexton: And we’d just come in that day to schedule it, and Freddy came in with Bobbie.
John Spong: Wow.
Charlie Sexton: And she was just sitting right there. ‘Cause he was kind of looking after her a bit. And we had that session, so yeah . . . she was sitting right there. Old Bobbie. Sweet Bobbie.
John Spong: What did, so talk about the band a little. I’ve always thought that Bobbie, she brought this kind of . . . what’s her piano do for them?
Charlie Sexton: It’s funny because . . .
John Spong: How do the pieces fit?
Charlie Sexton: That’s a classic role. We were just working on something here a week ago. Wednesday. And it was for the . . . Terry Allen’s grandson, Calder, who I work with. And he wrote this song, it’s kind of like a Mississippi-style, hill country, it has that kind of dirty, RL kind of vibe. It’s just real kind of pumping. And so we were going to put his uncle, Bukka, playing piano on it. And so he came in, he started playing kind of certain things. So we had a quick conversation about it, because the role that Bobbie played was a real special role. And it happens because of the instrument, because it happened in a lot of blues records, like Otis Spann [and] a bunch of these people. Or, where there’s a certain sort of rough and readiness of guitars and drums and more rock-and-roll sort of things? To a certain extent?
But there’s a musicality, where a lot of times when you extract what the piano is actually doing against that sort of “YEAHHHH!” bluesy, low-down rocking thing, there’s this really kind of . . . and it’s kind of, if you’ve grown up, I think, at a certain time learning how to play the piano, you play church songs, and you play . . . you’ve learned there’s a certain kind of juxtapose about what was going on. And Bobbie brought that juxtaposition, I think, to Willie’s thing. In a big way. And a real important way. And it’s kind of in an unreplaceable way. And I think that has a lot, I mean, I don’t know, you have to talk to him, but that’s part of it, probably among other more personal reasons, why that seat can’t really ever be filled again.
And it’s a juxtaposition, which going back to the song, the version of “I Let My Mind Wander,” they were creating that musically, like, “Okay, we’re going to make it a little more jaunty and ahhh.” But the thing is, those kinds of songs, it’s like recently I’ve seen it pop up a lot, it goes, “Well, when people are happy, they just listen to the music and the beat. When they’re not happy, when they’re sad, they start listening to the lyrics.” And I think that’s a pretty fair observation to make.
And I think you got to be willing to go into that room to really get the effect of that demo of “I Let My Mind Wander.” You got to go into that little, whatever that room is for you, and just sit with it.
[Willie Nelson performing “I Let My Mind Wander”]
John Spong: I’m probably not supposed to go here, and if I’m not, then just move me on. And we got to wind up pretty soon anyhow. But you have this long working relationship with Dylan, and Dylan is famously friends with and fans of . . .
Charlie Sexton: Oh, he loves Willie.
John Spong: . . . Willie’s. Do you have any insight into that? I mean, they really . . .
Charlie Sexton: Well, I mean, you know, god, I mean you have to really ask Bob about that. But I mean, it’s like, what’s not to like, you know what I mean?
John Spong: Well, there’s that.
Charlie Sexton: And it’s just like, he’s a great songwriter. I mean, he’s a stylist in what he does. I mean, I’m not surprised if that was like, “Ooh, I want to learn how to play like Willie.” You know what I mean? And he’s just a wild survivor of life. I mean, if you look at how dark that song is, and then it’s like, “Will I ever be happy? I just don’t see a way.”
John Spong: Right. Yeah.
Charlie Sexton: Well, he figured it out. I don’t know. I asked him one time, we were having dinner a couple years ago at their house. We were in California, and we had this little dinner. And I go, “Oh, what’s that?” He’s like, “Oh, yeah, it’s aloe vera juice.” I’m like, “What?” He’s like, “Yeah, I’ve been having this for, I’ve been drinking it forever.” I’m like, “Wow. Where’d you find . . . ” That’s the first time I ever heard of it. He’s like, “No, I found it. . . I don’t know, like, the seventies or eighties, I found it in Houston. It’s just great. It’s really good for you.” It’s like aloe vera water-juice.
John Spong: I never even heard of that.
Charlie Sexton: Me neither. I asked my mom, she goes, “Oh, yeah, I used to have that.”
John Spong: Growing up in town, like you said, Willie is everywhere. And so I probably took him for granted a little bit.
Charlie Sexton: Well I did . . . when I was little I did too.
John Spong: Well, when he did that sixtieth birthday thing, and Dylan played it, and then they come out, and they do “Pancho and Lefty” together, and I’m like, “Oh, wait a minute.” First off, it makes absolute perfect sense that the two of them are doing that song.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah. It’s kind of funny.
John Spong: But also it’s like, Oh, wow, these guys, these guys that we, I, always thought of as the legend, the genius, the giant, whatever, who I didn’t take for granted because I didn’t ever run into him at Mr. Gatti’s, like I did Willie when I was a kid.
Charlie Sexton: Mr. Gatti’s!
John Spong: Yeah, at the pizza place, honestly. But it’s like, “Oh, those are the peers. Ray Charles and Willie were the peers.”
Charlie Sexton: I mean, it’s funny because we went to, one time, we were in Japan on tour with Bob, and we were there for three weeks or something, a particularly long time. And on the way back, there was a gig in Maui, so we ended up being in Maui.
John Spong: Oh, okay.
Charlie Sexton: And I ended up going to the house when I arrived . . .
John Spong: Willie and Annie’s?
Charlie Sexton: . . . and saw Willie and Annie and Micah for a minute. But I remember at the gig, Bob was on some thing, where he was on some . . . situation, before the gig, where we weren’t going to do the show we’d been doing for the last three weeks. Which, the . . . s— would change or would morph, things would come in and out, or what have you. But I remember at sound check, we ended up doing, working on three or four Willie songs. “We’re just going to do a bunch of Willie songs tonight, because this is where Willie lives. And we’re just going to do a bunch of Willie songs. We’re going to do ‘On the Road Again.’ We’re going to do ‘Pancho and Lefty.’” I mean, I am paraphrasing on what we actually were going to do, like the list with…at sound check, essentially.
John Spong: I love that.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah. I mean, all these . . . just out of nowhere. I mean, it almost ended up like we were going to do a Willie set. I mean, it wasn’t that full-on. But whatever jag he was on that particular day, he had Willie on the mind.
John Spong: I love that.
Charlie Sexton: I do too.
John Spong: I love that.
Charlie Sexton: It was great. We did the Harvey benefit for the hurricane a few years ago, and it had. . . Jimmie was on it, and Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor and Paul Simon, I mean, everybody was there—and Willie! And that night he came out, and he played so great that night. I mean, he plays great all the time, but he was just like . . . and my son came to the show, he was about sixteen, seventeen at the time. And he goes, “Man, you know who blew my mind last night?” Because I was just, like, “Shewww.” And he goes, “Man, Willie.” I go, “Oh, yeah.” He goes, “I had no idea. He just, he crushed everybody.”
John Spong: Wow.
Charlie Sexton: I go, “Yeah, he did.” And he just was digging in, and it was just so great.
John Spong: That’s pretty cool.
Charlie Sexton: I mean, he’s a brilliant—and it’s all those things that are in him. It’s part of his diet, musical diet, whether it was the Django stuff, the whatever, you know. And, you know, he sat around and played with Chet Atkins a couple of times.
John Spong: Yeah, and supposedly Chet wasn’t much of a fan of his playing, but then he wasn’t—Willie . . .
Charlie Sexton: Well . . .
John Spong: Chet’s precise and Willie’s loose.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah, he was real—yeah.
John Spong: Willie’s feel.
Charlie Sexton: Yeah. But the harmonic stuff, I mean, they knew about some chords. Well, that’s okay, ’cause I like Willie’s playing better than Chet anyway. There you go.
John Spong: Is there—you’ve learned a bunch from him, from his example, from listening to his songs. Is there a great lesson?
Charlie Sexton: It’s funny, and that song kind of resonates. It makes me feel less alone in feeling alone. You know what I mean? And that’s [a] pretty bone-simple thing to say, but it kind of does, you know? And it’s like, yeah. ’Cause, I mean, there’s a certain kind of lane I go in, writing a lot, and yeah. Yeah. It ain’t—someone said, “Hey, can you play our party?” I’m like, “Yeah, man. I don’t play party music, man.” Well, I can, but you know what I’m saying. It’s, “Turn out the lights. The party’s over. All good things . . .”
John Spong: That’s it . . .
John Spong (voice-over): All right, Willie fans, that was Charlie Sexton talking about “I Let My Mind Wander.” A huge thanks to him for coming on the show, and a big thanks to you for tuning in. If you dig the show, please subscribe, maybe tell a couple of friends, and visit our page wherever you get your podcasts and give us some stars or type in some comments. Every little bit of that helps the show more than you know.
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I’m your host, John Spong. Thanks for listening.