Willie Nelson could have warned mamas not to let their babies grow up to be Americana musicians, but too late — he’s one of the core heroes and spiritual gurus of that roots-based movement, a…
, which puts on two of the best historically minded concerts of the year, each and every year. One is the annual Americana Honors awards show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in September, and the other is this much more intimate, 500-capacity Grammy eve show at the Troubadour, which in the past has saluted artists from Emmylou Harris to Loretta Lynn to Glenn Frey.
The scion of the Jennings family was closing the show — a position that deeply embarrassed him, following, he said, explaining that Tanya Tucker had been supposed to join him for a duet from the “Phases & Stages” album, but had been dealing with bronchitis and had to save her voice for her Grammy performance.
Prine had a more peculiar anecdote come to mind. He recalled going to one of Nelson’s celebrated all-star shows in Texas in the early 1970s, “where people were thinking about Woodstock. It was the first show where there was a bunch of hippies and bunch of rednecks and they were all drinking beer and getting along, and it was all because of Willie.
Prine sang Nelson’s “I Gotta Get Drunk,” which he introduced as “kind of a religious song.” As the only artist on the bill besides Jennings to get a second number, he then brought out Sara Watkins to duet with him on Nelson’s heartrending holiday perennial, “Pretty Paper.”
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