Tami Neilson on Willie Nelson, Sister Bobbie, and the Singular Grace of Playing in a Family Band
The New Zealand-based Americana star, who grew up in a barnstorming, family gospel band, looks at “I Thought About You, Lord,” Willie’s wide-open heart, and the gifts her kids bring to pizza parties at his and Annie’s place.
By John Spong
Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, and Joan Baez perform at the Circle Star Theatre in San Carlos, California, on March 5, 1976.
Photo by Richard McCaffrey / Getty
This one’s all about family. Tami Neilson grew up in a country-gospel family band, crisscrossing the US and Canada with her two brothers and their mom and dad. So the Outlaw mystique notwithstanding, she came to love Willie initially through his gospel side. The Neilsons, as they billed themselves, borrowed Willie’s arrangements of “Uncloudy Day” and his gospel medley for their sets. And they studied his sublime 1996 album Spirit, with Tami making special note of the way Willie, Trigger, and Sister Bobbie’s piano seemed to work as one, shared soul. It was akin to the way she and her brother Jay, who continued playing guitar after she started her solo career in the late aughts, took care of each other onstage.
Fast-forward to 2020, when—thanks to the topnotch ear for talent of the cool kids who book the Luck Reunion—she suddenly found herself one of Willie’s new favorite artists and, before long, essentially an adopted member of his and Annie’s family. Soon came casual hangs at Willie’s house and opening slots on his tours. In late 2021, Willie and Trigger duetted with Tami on a song she’d written for her late father, “Beyond the Stars.” And then at the 2022 Luck Reunion, just a week after Sister Bobbie had passed, they debuted the song together live when Willie made a surprise appearance during her set. It was a beautiful, supremely emotional moment. To quote a review of the Luck Reunion at savingcountrymusic.com, “Tears were shed, and souls were saved.”
In this week’s One by Willie, Tami goes deep into all that, with a focus on the cornerstone of Spirit, “I Thought About You, Lord.” It’s a hymn original to Willie, a plainspoken declaration of faith and a valentine to the cosmos that, for Tami, sums up what she takes from Willie and what the wider world can as well. All that, plus what it’s like to be an opening act for Willie—along with Sheryl Crow and Bob Dylan—on last summer’s Outlaw Festival Tour, the unlikely way she got tight with Annie, and what it’s like to have Willie tell you one of your songs “reminds me of Patsy and Marty.”
One by Willie is produced by John Spong and PRX, in partnership with Texas Monthly. The PRX production team is Jocelyn Gonzalez, Patrick Grant, Pedro Rafael Rosado, and project manager Edwin Ochoa, with graphic design by Joanna Holden and Modular, ink. The Texas Monthly team is engineer Brian Standefer, and executive producers Megan Creydt and Melissa Reese. And Dominic Welhouse provides invaluable research and editing help.
One by Willie is produced by John Spong and PRX, in partnership with Texas Monthly. The PRX production team is Jocelyn Gonzalez, Patrick Grant, Pedro Rafael Rosado, and project manager Edwin Ochoa, with graphic design by Joanna Holden and Modular, ink. The Texas Monthly team is engineer Brian Standefer, and executive producers Megan Creydt and Melissa Reese. And Dominic Welhouse provides invaluable research and editing help.
John Spong (voiceover)
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 Americana star Tami Neilson, a New Zealand-based singer-songwriter who happens also to be, essentially, an adopted member of Willie’s extended family, about a deep cut off his sublime 1996 album Spirit…“I Thought About You, Lord.” The song is a hymn original to Willie, a soft, plainspoken declaration of his faith, and a hugely important one to Tami, who first came to Willie’s music through his gospel side, as a young girl touring the US and Canada with her country-gospel family band the Neilsons
And really, the whole conversation is a testament to family, as Tami discusses Willie’s unbreakable bond with Sister Bobbie, her own lifelong collaboration with her brother Jay, her sisterly connection with Willie’s wife Annie…and the way Willie subbed in for her late father, Ron Neilson, on their beautiful 2022 duet, “Beyond the Stars.”
On and one other thing, real quick…if you hear a bunch of activity in the background of this episode, that’s because Tami talked to us from backstage at one of Willie’s Outlaw Music Festival tour dates last summer. This one takes you about as deep into Willie World as you can go—complete with little kids and Legos.
So let’s do it.
[Willie Nelson performs “I Thought About You, Lord”]
John Spong: Well, cool then. We'll get going. But then also actually, we'll get to your focus song, but before even doing that, a little context, where are you right now…and whatcha doing tonight?
Tami Neilson: Well, you might hear some noise in the background because I just happen to be backstage on the Outlaw Festival tour. Willie's going to be sound-checking shortly. So, it's all authentic here. I am going to be opening the show with Trampled by Turtles, Nathaniel Raitliff, a guy you may have heard of, Bob Dylan, who's opening for Willie tonight. All of us are opening for Willie tonight.
John Spong: You're in fine company there, aren't you?
Tami Neilson: I am in high cotton.
John Spong: That's so cool. That's so cool. That's so cool. Well, let's try to live up to that.
Tami Neilson: Yeah. I can't even live up to that, man. I can't.
John Spong: Well, so the song of Willie's you picked to start with is, “I Thought About You, Lord.” What's so cool about Willie's song, “I Thought About You?”
Tami Neilson: Well, this song just holds layers of meaning for me. And it's special to me because it's a song that I grew up listening to. I grew up in a family band. We started out in gospel music, so first, really, was exposed more to Willie's gospel catalog growing up. And [we] covered some of his songs in our shows growing up. And yeah, he's always been a true north my whole life. And this song particularly, I find deeply moving. Because it’s…Willie is known for so many things. Being an outlaw, being Shotgun Willie. Every single person I meet, the first question they ask is, "Have you smoked a joint with Willie? Have you gotten high with Willie?" That's what he's kind of known for. And so to hear him in this song open up his spirituality and be vulnerable is a really beautiful thing. And such a…some would see it as a contrast to the image he has, but it's not a contrast. He is a man of many layers. And this is one of his deepest layers that we get to see. And I feel really privileged that he shares those things with us as well.
But this song, I recently did an album called Neilson Sings Nelson, and it was a little birthday gift to him. It wasn't even supposed to be for everyone to hear. I snuck into the studio, thanks to Annie, his wife/rattlesnake, who we know is the boss.
John Spong: Oh, yeah.
Tami Neilson: Yeah. And she arranged for us to kind of go into his studio on his ranch in Pedernales, and we recorded just acoustically, kind of live off the floor, all of the…some of my favorite songs of his. And I wasn't going to cover this one because for me, this song is also very much about Bobbie. About his sister, Bobbie. And it needed piano. And me and my brothers who recorded this album didn't play piano, and so it wasn't going to be on the album. And then we walked into the studio, and there was Bobbie's piano just sitting in the corner in this room that she recorded in. And it was so moving. We all burst into tears just seeing her piano.
And I had flown in a cameraman to kind of capture us being in the studio. And I said, "Ah, man, I wish we could do, ‘I Thought About You,’ but none of us play keys." And he said, "I play a bit of piano." And I'm like, "Okay, well, learn this song." And he listened to it maybe two or three times.
John Spong: Wow.
Tami Neilson: We ran it, and then we just recorded it. He had just learned it. And Steve Schadie, who is Willie's longtime engineer, who's in-house, he was engineering the album. And he was setting up the mics, mic-ing the piano, as we were kind of running through and rehearsing. And he started sobbing. He started to cry. If you know Schadie, he is a big, tough dude. Like, you-
John Spong: I can't picture him crying.
Tami Neilson: You can't even picture it, because he is...and he just started to cry, this big burly teddy bear of a man. And he said, "That is the last song Bobbie played on this piano in this room when we recorded." And all of us just, we broke out in goosebumps, and we were all crying. And it was just such a sacred moment and such a special moment to be in that room. So, this song just holds…it's a treasure. And it holds so many reasons to love it for me.
John Spong: Yeah. Can I play Willie's version for you? Will you listen to that with me?
Tami Neilson: Oh, you can twist my arm.
[Willie Nelson performs “I Thought About You, Lord”]
Tami Neilson: Damn you, John. Damn you.
John Spong: It does it, right?
Tami Neilson: Holy moly. Yep. You played that just to get me [to] do this, didn't you?
John Spong: Hell yeah. If nobody cries, then we're doing it wrong.
Tami Neilson: Yeah.
John Spong: What leaps out in the lyrics in that? What leaps out to you?
Tami Neilson: I just love-
John Spong: What lines?
Tami Neilson: …“the most gentle, sweet, and kind one.” Yeah. Yeah, because so many people see... So much of what we see today, unfortunately, people weaponize God's name. Or use it for judgment. Or cruelty, even. We're seeing all around the world right now. And I think how you view God is a reflection of who you are, it holds a mirror up to yourself. If you see him as a God of judgment and a tyrant, then you need to look in your heart. Why do you see it that way? The fact that Willie sees God as a gentle, sweet, and kind one says everything about that man.
John Spong: Yeah. That's exactly where I go when I listen to it. Like, I listen to the first verse, and it's like, “I thought about trees and how much I'd like to climb one.” And there's a lightness to that. It's like, how serious is this song going to be? I don't know, but it's light. But it's also about a simple joy. And then there's, "I thought about friends and how hard it is to find one." And that's about a joy that you gotta earn. So where are we going with this? "I thought about You, the most gentle, sweet and kind one." I don't think about mercy. I don't think about all-powerful, all the things that get attributed to God, glass half-full, glass half-empty. That's Willie's image of God.
Tami Neilson: Yeah.
John Spong: Gentleness, sweetness, kindness.
Tami Neilson: And that is, I'm absolutely sure, God's view of Willie Nelson.
John Spong: I bet. I'll give you that.
Tami Neilson: They're kindred spirits, those two. Yeah.
John Spong: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, so do you know this album well? Do you know Spirit, the album well?
Tami Neilson: Yes. And I really struggled between choosing this one and “Too Sick to Pray.” But I did go through some of the guests you'd had earlier, and I was trying to choose one that hadn't been talked about because that one...I mean, how do you even choose one Willie Nelson song? You're asking the impossible, John. You're asking the impossible. Yeah.
John Spong: But it's cool because there's so much great Willie, that I think we went 40 episodes before we even repeated a song.
Tami Neilson: Yeah, exactly.
John Spong: Because they all mean something to you.
Tami Neilson: Yeah.
John Spong (15:51):
Well, it's interesting, Spirit, when it came out and I was younger, I didn't quite get it at first. But as I came to understand more about Willie and the Willie story, I mean, it's such a quiet record. I saw an English writer who did a bio of Willie, Graeme Thomson. He referred to the music as sounding like “a Dust Bowl string quartet playing Tex-Mex chamber music.”
Tami Neilson: That is the perfect...
John Spong: That's on the money.
Tami Neilson: …the perfect explanation.
John Spong: That's on the money.
Tami Neilson: Yeah.
John Spong: And it's Willie. Well, it's a family record. It's Willie, and it's Bobbie. And there's no harmonica. There's no Mickey. There's no electric…
Tami Neilson: That's right. Yeah.
John Spong: ...guitars. There's no drums. It really was. Willie came in off the road and thought he'd put some demos down and liked the way it was sounding. It was in '96? And what, he just had a really tough stretch personally. And so I've heard this record described as a concept album about losing a love and then finding love. And Willie just said it a little bit more philosophically and a little bit more simply. He said, “It's an album about going from despair to hope.”
Tami Neilson: Yes.
John Spong: Which is really kind of wonderful. And he said it's his favorite album he's ever made.
Tami Neilson: That's incredible. I didn't know that that was his favorite.
John Spong: Yeah. Yeah. So, when Ethan Hawk was on and he talked...because that's the other thing about the record. A, you hear the relationships. You hear the way...that was the first time I've listened to this song with headphones on. It's a completely different experience. The interplay between the guitar and the piano and the fiddle. He brought Johnny Gimble in. So, it's chosen family, Gimble, his oldest friend, maybe, in music, one of them. And it's Bobbie on piano. And well, so when Ethan Hawk talked about it, he said he goes back to this album a lot because it always teaches him about humility.
Tami Neilson: Yeah. Yeah. And it's so...I just love the authenticity of it. And there's nowhere to hide. It's just so stripped back. It's just his heart. It's wearing his heart on his sleeve. And like I said, we're just so lucky to have him open and show that vulnerability to us. And what a privilege.
[Willie Nelson performs “I Thought About You Lord”}
John Spong: Yeah. Well, so how did you find this album? Or actually, maybe to back up further, how did you find Willie Nelson in the first place? I'm guessing, talking about family stories…
Tami Neilson: Yeah. I can't remember a time that Willie Nelson wasn't a part of my life. It's like you're not choosing your parents or your siblings, they've just always been there. And that's how Willie's music has been a soundtrack my entire life. The earliest memory I have with Willie involved in my life would be, I would've been about five? And I can still see the Pretty Paper Christmas album cover next to my dad's record player, and him having all his covers scattered while he's playing Christmas music. And I can just see the green shag carpet. It was the 70s. I am that old. And yeah, this green shag carpet, and my dad's speakers, and the Pretty Paper album cover.
John Spong: Well, so that time period, what's that in relationship to when the Neilsons become this barnstorming family band all over Canada and the US?
Tami Neilson: Oh, well, that's pretty early on. We started singing, I guess it was a whole five years later. I was 10 years old when we started singing as a family band, and that was us singing the “Gospel Medley,” singing “Uncloudy Day” in our show, and that was Willie's version. “Family Bible.” And so those are songs that are also linked to the start of my journey in music.
And five years after that was our first country album, outside of gospel music. And I remember it was the first time we were in record shops. And again, my true north…I would walk into a record shop, or CDs at the time, and start looking for the Willie Nelson section because we were always filed right after “N” for Nelson…was “N” for Neilson, right? And so anytime I walk into a record store, it was like, look for Willie and that's where I'll be. And so he's just been a compass my whole life.
I remember buying Moonlight Becomes You with my own pocket money. Like, on the road, we would make $50 bucks a show. That was our big spending money. We were rolling in it. And my money would always go toward buying more music. And I remember buying the Moonlight Becomes You CD…
[Willie Nelson performs “Moonlight Becomes You”]
…and my dad saying to me, this feels like a sequel to the Stardust album and telling me all about the Stardust album and of course, growing up listening to that. And…
John Spong: Well, what would your dad...because your dad's teaching you songs, right? Your dad is your, he's your north. What is that phrase? I keep seeing that when I see quotes from you, the north...is that a New Zealand thing or a Canada thing? We say “North Star” in Texas. I never hear it as “the north.” I love that.
Tami Neilson: I think that's a Canadian thing.
John Spong: A little bit of vernacular. Okay.
Tami Neilson: Yeah. Your true north. Or yeah, your northern star. I think that is part of my Canadian vernacular coming out.
John Spong: Oh, I love it. But your dad, what does he teach you? When he puts a Willie record on for you, what does he tell you to listen to?
Tami Neilson: I don't know that he was specific about instructing me to listen for something. It was just kind of giving me the history and letting the music speak for itself and wanting...I guess it's that discovery. He was enabling and nurturing us to discover Willie for ourselves. So, he would provide the music and then just be like, “This is Willie Nelson,” and kind of giving us a background on it. But then it was him allowing us to have our own moment of discovery and not shape our opinions or taste. It was like, "This is wonderful music that I love, but see what you think." Yeah.
John Spong: The other thing that I love that you just said, most folks, especially our age, are going to come to Willie through the Outlaw stuff, like you were saying at the top. That's what people imagine. It's a finger shot at somebody and somebody's getting flipped off and there's a joint in the frame and stuff like that. That you came through the gospel music, that’s such...it's more important to Willie than all the other stuff, I would think. And it's just not the way people get there. But also, those songs are all about his faith, but also his relationship with his sister, because when they were little, those songs saved their lives when their life was so hard. And so his gospel music…that's just a different way in. But now I'm telling you what I hear. What did you hear as a little kid, or at any point, listening to that?
Tami Neilson: Well, for me, I guess I felt such solidarity with the relationship between Willie and Bobbie. Because I grew up with that same kind of relationship with my brothers and in particular my brother Jay, who is still my closest collaborator, co-writer. I have spent 40 years on a stage with him, and I can still remember…that would be probably the biggest kind of gateway for me was that, not only gospel music because we sang gospel or Christmas music because I was a kid, but it was that relationship between him and his sister. And I was like, "Oh, they're like us."
And feeling that simpatico and being really drawn to that, I can still remember the first time getting to perform with Willie. It was one week after he lost Bobbie. So, it was March 2020, and our duet, “Beyond the Stars,” had just been released, and he…Annie told me that he played that song for Annie over and over and over again. So, that took on such a special depth of meaning. And I couldn't even explain what an honor to think that a song I wrote was finally giving him back just a tiny sliver of what he'd given me, my whole life. He'd gotten me through grief, and celebrated love with me, and my spiritual walk, all those things. And to have a moment where he felt somehow like it was processing his grief, with his sister, was just…
Yeah, I can't even talk about it. It's so special. And I remember standing on that stage and singing with him and looking at my brother on the other side of me and thinking, “Here we are standing on this stage and he's missing his other half–and I got my other half on stage.” And just how I could feel that grief, and that love, and just how privileged and honored I was to be in that moment.
John Spong: Yeah.
Tami Neilson: Yeah.
[Willie Nelson performs “I Thought About You, Lord”]
John Spong: How did you get to that moment? How did you go from being a fan to a family member? Because that's what Annie told me. Annie said, "Tami's family. Get on the Zoom with Tami."
Tami Neilson: Oh, man.
John Spong: How'd that happen?
Tami Neilson: I still can't even believe it. So, I mean, all things point to Annie, as usual. I had been booked to play Luck Reunion, and that was in March 2020. I felt like I hit the jackpot. Six weeks earlier, I played a showcase at the Folk Alliance Festival in New Orleans. Matt Bizer was in the audience. He came up to me-
John Spong: The CEO of Luck, Texas.
Tami Neilson: Yep. Yep. And he-
John Spong: Sweetest guy in Texas.
Tami Neilson: The sweetest man. And he came up…he only heard like one-and-a-half songs maybe? And he walked up to me. When I finished, I'd blown my wig. My wig was falling off. I was sweating. I'd left it all on stage. I didn't know who he was. But Luck Reunion had always been like a bucket list for me. And he came up to me and said, "Who's your agent? I'd really love to book you. I've got a festival. It's only six weeks away. I don't know if you can make it happen." And I said, "Oh, what's your festival?" And he said, "Luck Reunion." And I yelled an expletive all the way across the room, that my brother was wrapping his guitar cord and looked over like, "What's happening?" And I was bent over yelling.
And so I just thought…I was on cloud nine. I'm like, "This is my dream come true." And one week before the festival, of course, the whole world shut down, and it got canceled. And so they were one of the first to move the festival online, and they asked me to beam in from New Zealand and sing three songs. And unbeknownst to me at the time, Willie and Annie and their family were all watching. And you know, if it had gone ahead, and I'd played the festival, he never would've saw me. I would've been on at 11:00 AM. No one gives a crap about some new girl on the block. He didn't come out. He's like a vampire. He doesn't come out till nighttime. And so the fact that this happened, and he and Annie were watching–and unbeknownst to me at the time, Matt told me later, he said, "While you were singing, my phone was blowing up. It was Annie." "Who the hell is this? Oh, my God. We love her. He loves her." And he told me this later. And little did I know.
So, she then started…she immediately went onto my social media and started following me on Twitter. And I had an influx of new people following me after that spot, and I didn't know who she was. And so I was interacting with her, and she was so, "You're just so wonderful!" She was so lovely. And I thought, what a sweet woman. And so we're interacting back and forth–I'm telling you, John, it was at least two months of going back and forth. And until she then followed my brother on Twitter, and Jay looked at her profile and said, "Do you realize who this ‘Annie’ is that keeps talking to you on Twitter?" I'm like, "No." He's like, "It's Willie's wife!" And I immediately was thinking, “Oh my God, how many inappropriate Willie Nelson memes have I sent this woman? Who knows? Who knows?”
Oh, my God. And so then this blooming friendship happened. She ended up sending me, DM’ing me her phone number and saying, "Let's talk off of the internet. And you can contact us anytime." And I'm like, "Have you been hacked?" And thus started this friendship. And we built this friendship over basically the two years of the world being in and out of lockdowns. And I was at, kinda, two years later writing and getting ready to record my new album. And I had this duet on the album that I'd written with my friend Delaney Davidson. We'd written it about the loss of, losing our dads.
John Spong: Because your dad had recently died, right?
Tami Neilson: My dad had passed away, yeah, a few years earlier. And we wrote this song, and it was a conversation between me and my dad and getting to visit him in my sleep. And you know, how you have these dreams of our loved ones, and when you dream you don't want to wake up, you just want to stay there because you're getting this extra time with them. And when it came [time] to record the song, I thought, who on earth am I going to get to fill his shoes and sing this second verse? This is a tall order, I can't just ask anyone. And my brother jokingly said, "Oh, why don't you ask your new best friend, Willie Nelson?"
And I did what you're doing now. I just laughed. But it planted a seed in my mind, and I thought, “Oh my God…no, that's way too, that's way too out of my league. That's never going to happen.” And it probably took a good three to six months for me to get up the nerve to even ask Annie, because I'm like, I don't want her to think we're friends because this was somehow some endgame. I don't want to ruin our friendship. I don't want to become one of those people that just is going through her to get to Willie or something.
And then she was telling me a story of a friend of theirs, I think in Hawaii, who Willie just did a duet with her. And I thought, Well, I guess they do collaborate with friends sometimes. And so I sent her this text and I said, "I'm shaking even asking you this, and I don't even want to cross…I hope I'm not crossing a line by even asking. And if I am, I want you to delete this text. Don't answer me. And we'll pretend it never happened." And she just responded and laughed. And she said, "Of course I'll send it to him, send it through." She's like, "Don't worry about it at all." She goes, "I've been in this world a long time, and I can tell when people are trying to take advantage. And you're not one of those people, you're tribe." And so-
John Spong: "You're tribe”...
Tami Neilson: "You're tribe."
John Spong: …that means something coming from her. That's her word.
Tami Neilson: Yeah. How special? And so I sent it through. And she said, “Obviously he'll see if it's for him.” That doesn't mean it's going to happen just because we're friends. And he has to hear himself in it. And long story short, we sent it through and he...or long story, long. He sent it through, and she came back and said, "He loves it. He said it reminds him of Patsy and Marty." And-
John Spong: Oh, wow. Holy smokes.
Tami Neilson: And I'm like, first of all, that would be a huge compliment coming from Willie, but-
John Spong: From someone who knew ‘em!
Tami Neilson: The fact that she...he wrote Patsy's biggest hit and knew the woman! For him to say that was mind-blowing. And yeah, and I can remember the day that he sent through his vocal–and Trigger's vocal, I should say. Both of them. Annie texted me. I was out for a walk. We were in lockdown and she just texted, "You're going to love this, sis." And I'm like, "What? What's happening?" And she's like, "Willie and Trigger, we're sending it through." I got in my car and raced home so fast, because I'm like, “I'm not listening to this on my iPhone speaker. I am listening to this on the big-ass speaker at home.”
So, I'm like, pedal to the metal, get home. My husband just happened to be home that day. We put it on, and we both just sat on the couch crying. And my husband's another one that's not a crier. And we both just wept. And I still can't believe it's real. The only thing that is proof it exists is like I'll listen to it and be like, “Okay, this really happened. It's real.”
John Spong: Are you pressed for time? Will you listen to that one with me or do you have other stuff to do?
Tami Neilson: No. Let me take a look here. What's our time? Yeah, I'm good.
John Spong: Oh, cool. Because I knew the story. I knew you had written it about your dad. I know what it's like to lose a dad, and how you keep him with you as you go. When I listened to that really closely with the lyrics in front of me, I was like, “Holy shit…Willie is singing her dad's verse.” I should have saved that for after we listen.
Tami Neilson: Right?
John Spong: But let me pull it up. It's just such a wonderful song.
Tami Neilson: The thought of my dad hearing this, or knowing that Willie filled in for him…just blows my mind. Yeah. He's like, "You got yourself a good sub there."
[Tami Neilson and Willie Nelson perform “Beyond the Stars”]
John: Mmh-mmh-mmh.
Tami Neilson: I still can't believe it's real.
John Spong: So beautiful.
Tami Neilson: No, listening to that, I still remember...because there's the Kingmaker, album version, which is all the orchestral stuff, and then this version is just that stripped back acoustic one. And it reminds me of sitting in a room with him for the first time, in his living room. And we were rehearsing it for the next day at Luck. And the feeling of, like, my hands were shaking so hard, I had to get my brother to play guitar. Because I was like, "You're playing. I can't do this in front of him." My fingers were shaking too much. And the feeling of our voices in a room together, just dry in a room together, was incredible.
And he started singing his verse, and then he just stopped in the middle of it, and he looked at me, and I thought, "Uh-oh, what's wrong?" And he said, "That's a good line right there." And then he carried on. And I’m just like, casually knock me over with a feather. I'm like, "Well, no one else can ever say anything to me again."
John Spong: Yeah.
Tami Neilson: What? You don't like my music? That's okay. Willie does.
John Spong: Yeah. Victory is at hand.
Tami Neilson: I'm good.
John Spong: That's so awesome. That's so awesome. But then also like you were saying, because the next day would've been, that would be rehearsing for the next day when you played it live in Luck. And that's when you had that powerful moment you were talking about earlier, about looking at Jay, and thinking about Willie and Bobbie, and how he was starting to embark on this period where he was going to go on stage without her for the first time in, shit, 50 years.
Tami Neilson: Yeah. And yeah, it was just overwhelming. And if you look at any footage of that day, I kept it together. And then it was when he started singing his verse, I just started to sob, and I was trying so hard to keep it together. And the whole time I'm going, "Be professional. Be professional. Don't let him see this." And he'd look over at me, and I'd be like smiling through my tears like, "I'm fine. This is fine."
[Willie Nelson performs “I Thought About You, Lord”]
John Spong: And so then that turns into this covers album. Was that your idea? Was it Annie's idea? How did the covers album…
Tami Neilson: It was just, honestly, a few weeks before Luck, this was I guess the following year? And it was to be his-
John Spong: Yeah, 2022 [correction: 2023).
Tami Neilson: Yeah, his 90th. It was his 90th birthday was going to be the following month. And I'm like, "What do you get the guy that has everything?" And I said to my brothers, I'm like, "Let's just do this little love letter to him." And just a celebration of his songs. And there's some…doing them in a way that might surprise him, that would be a little different than other versions. And a lot of them are deep cuts that you never hear. And so because we weren't choosing it for the masses to hear, we were choosing what he would like to hear. And…
John Spong: Wow, nice.
Tami Neilson: ...so we were trying to pick ones that would be a little bit different. And going in there and doing it with my brothers, again, was so special. The three of us…my youngest brother, Todd, he hasn't performed with us in decades. So, the three of us in a room together, kind of running the song once and then hitting “record” was again very much in the spirit of Spirit, of that album. And being in that room and thinking, “The music these walls have soaked up…” was magical. It was just such a magical experience. But yeah, the whole reason was really just to kind of give him a little surprise birthday gift.
And then I thought about it later. I'm like, this is like the equivalent of giving Willie Nelson socks. Because everybody records his songs. But you know what was so special though, on his birthday, Micah...this was a year later because on his birthday that year was the Hollywood Bowl. And he was a bit busy. But the following year, Micah messaged me and said that, "Dad and I just sat down and listened to the album." And he said, "I've heard some of these songs…" he goes, "‘Always On My Mind,’ I've heard a million times." And he said, "And we were both surprisingly emotional, like, listening to this song that we know in and out," and said that he was surprised by...and called it a masterpiece, which that's all you want. That's all you want.
It was just for him and his ears. And if he loved it, then that's all that mattered.
[Tami Neilson performs “I Thought About You, Lord”}
John Spong: You said, because you had your kids, your two boys sing backup with you. And I mean, clearly there's the next generation. That's this family thing that we've been talking about. And Willie's always doing stuff with all of his kids. What'd you say? You said you were training your children with every song, like what you sing to them, what you play for them, the whole bit?
Tami Neilson: Yeah. I guess it's not like…I guess I'm very aware because of the way I grew up of wanting my kids to, again, make their own decisions. If they want to be involved in music or not, they go in and out of involvement with the shows. Whenever I ask if they want to sing or come out, they can say no, and they don't have to come out if they don't want to. But exposing them to this world and how special it is to collaborate together. And it's a bond that my dad said to me when I was growing up. He's like, "I hope someday you're going to get to experience…there's no feeling in the world like getting to share music with your kids and stand on a stage with them and perform.” And he goes, "I hope you know someday." And now I've gotten to experience that and wish I could share that with him, but he knew.
John Spong: Yeah. He knows.
Tami Neilson: He knew. But now I totally understand how he felt about me on that stage. And how I…now it continues and I feel about my children getting to share in music with me.
John Spong: Do you play Willie for them? What have you told your kids about Willie?
Tami Neilson: All day, every day. Yeah. The thing is they knew Willie, before we all knew Willie, they are well-acquainted with his music. My son, Sam's, favorite song was “Shotgun Willie,” from the time he was just a little tiny thing. And they actually, it's kind of crazy because, I don't know, for them, they're like, "He's a friend of mummy's that she plays with." I think they sometimes...when they get older, they'll realize the enormity of it. But they are starting to grasp it because they're getting to the age, like 10 and 13, they're now starting to get it that, "Oh, Willie's like actually...everyone knows who he is. It's not just our family."
But I remember the boys got to actually, we were visiting Annie and Willie. We were in LA. They happened to be in LA at the same time, at their home there. And Annie said, "Oh, why don't you guys come over for dinner? We'll have some pizzas." And...right? What is my life? What is my life? And so we were about to go to their place. And during that afternoon, we had popped into the Lego store with the kids. And the boys said, "Well, we have to bring a present for Annie and for Willie." And so they stood at the wall of Lego keychains, and I said, "Okay, if you want to bring them a little present..." And so they chose a Wonder Woman for Annie, and then they chose a Gandolf for Willie. And when they gave it to him, he opened it up, and they said, "We chose that one because it looks just like you." And he said, "You're right, it does." Yeah. Kids make things real, real quick, eh?
John Spong: I love it. I love it. I could talk to you all day, but you're at work.
Tami Neilson: Yeah, my boss might get mad at me.
John Spong: Oh, yeah.
[Willie Nelson performs “I Thought About You, Lord”]
John Spong (voiceover)
All right, Willie fans. That was Tami Neilson, talking about “I Thought About You, Lord.” A huge thanks to her for coming on the show, and a big thanks to you for tuning in. If you dig the show, please subscribe and stop by our website at onebywillie.com. Oh, and please visit our page wherever you get your podcasts and give us some stars or type in some comments, or maybe just tell one friend to check us out. Every little bit of that helps more than you know.
One by Willie is a production of John Spong and PRX, in partnership with Texas Monthly. Our PRX production team is Jocelyn Gonzales, Patrick Grant, and Pedro Rafael Rosado, with project manager Edwin Ochoa. Our Texas Monthly team is producer / engineer Brian Standefer, with executive producers Megan Creydt and Melissa Reese. Our art and web design come from Joanna Holden and Modular, ink. And we get invaluable research and editing help from Dominic Welhouse.
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I’m your host, John Spong…thanks for listening.