FILE – Willie Nelson performs on the Producers & Engineers Wing twelfth Annual Grammy Week Celebration on the Village Studio in Los Angeles, on Feb. 6, 2019.
Richard Shotwell/Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
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Richard Shotwell/Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
FILE – Willie Nelson performs on the Producers & Engineers Wing twelfth Annual Grammy Week Celebration on the Village Studio in Los Angeles, on Feb. 6, 2019.
Richard Shotwell/Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
LOS ANGELES — “Are there any extra actual cowboys?” Neil Younger sang Saturday evening on the Hollywood Bowl on a uncommon night when he was neither the headliner nor, at age 77, even near the oldest artist on the invoice.
Offering an immediate reply, Willie Nelson, carrying a cowboy hat and red-white-and-blue guitar strap, slowly strolled on to the stage on his ninetieth birthday, bringing the group of greater than 17,000 to its toes.
Nelson sat in a chair — one of many few onstage concessions he is made to age — and joined Younger for the remainder of their 1985 duet, “Are There Any Extra Actual Cowboys?”
“I need to thank all of the artists who got here out tonight to assist have fun no matter it’s we’re celebrating,” mentioned Nelson, feigning senility and getting fun.
The second got here three hours into the primary of a two-night celebration of the nation legend on the open-air Los Angeles amphitheater, the place generations of stars sang his songs in tribute.
“As a child rising up in Texas, it appeared like there was nothing larger than Willie Nelson,” mentioned Owen Wilson, one of many night’s emcees together with Helen Mirren, Ethan Hawke and Jennifer Garner. “And searching on the Hollywood Bowl tonight, it nonetheless looks like there’s nothing larger than Willie Nelson.”
After Younger, Nelson introduced out George Strait, a rustic celebrity of the next era, for his or her self-referential duet, “Sing One With Willie,” adopted by the Willie perennial, “Pancho and Lefty,” with Strait singing the half as soon as performed by the late Merle Haggard.
Nelson then shouted, “Come out and roll one with me Snoop!”
Strutting out got here rapper Snoop Dogg, sitting subsequent to Nelson as they launched into their stoner anthem, “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me Once I Die.” Maybe fittingly, every appeared to neglect the phrases at occasions. The 2 buddies regarded too completely happy to care.
“Anyone make some noise for the legend Mr. Willie Nelson!” Snoop shouted mid-song.
The parade of companions illustrated one of many evening’s themes: Willie brings folks collectively.
“The entire sudden, it did not matter for those who have been a hillbilly or a hippie, everybody was a Willie Nelson fan,” Wilson mentioned of Nelson’s late-blooming emergence as a singing celebrity when he left Nashville, Tennessee, and returned to his native Texas within the Seventies. “Even the Dalai Lama is a Willie Nelson fan. It is true.”
The group, which ranged from young children to seniors, illustrated the purpose. The stands have been dotted with cowboy hats whereas hippies danced within the aisles and weed smoke wafted within the air.
Miranda Lambert thrilled them with a rousing, sing-along model of “Mammas Do not Let Your Infants Develop As much as Be Cowboys,” Nelson’s 1978 hit with Waylon Jennings. The Chicks blazed by way of 1970’s “Bloody Mary Morning” on the similar break-neck tempo that Willie and his Household Band performed it dwell of their prime.
Nelson has outlived practically each member of that band, which backed him for many years of fixed touring and recording. His little sister and piano participant, Bobbie Nelson, died final yr. She obtained her personal tribute from Norah Jones, who banged the keys by way of the youthful Nelson’s saloon-style solo music, “Down Yonder,” from Willie Nelson’s definitive 1975 album, “Purple Headed Stranger.”
Whereas lots of the ladies who took the stage performed rousing rockers, many of the males went in for quiet emotion.
Chris Stapleton stored his guitar at his facet by way of a gentle, reflective rendition of “All the time on My Thoughts,” Nelson’s largest solo hit of the Eighties. Nelson’s son Lukas sang “Angel Flying Too Near The Floor” alone together with his acoustic guitar, his voice a lifeless ringer for his dad’s.
One other surviving member of the Household Band, harmonica grasp Mickey Raphael, was a part of the weekend’s home band, led by Don Was, which backed nearly everybody.
Nelson additionally has outlived most of his basic collaborators. However a necessary one, his 86-year-old Highwaymen bandmate Kris Kristofferson, made it to the stage to affix Rosanne Money, the daughter of one other Highwayman: Johnny Money.
Rosanne Money was singing Nelson’s “Loving Her Was Simpler (Than Something I am going to Ever Do Once more)” when Kristofferson, who wrote the music, got here out and harmonized along with her on the choruses.
Nelson’s musical range was one other night theme.
“He blends and bends genres,” Mirren mentioned from the stage. “His timing and classes are his personal.”
Leon Bridges’ “Night time Life” confirmed off Nelson’s affinity for the blues, as did Jones’ jazzy journey by way of “Humorous How Time Slips Away” from 1961, when Nelson was identified primarily as a songwriter of hits for others.
Ziggy Marley sang “Nonetheless Is Nonetheless Shifting To Me,” which Nelson recorded in 1993 and later sang with Toots and the Maytals in one among his occasional forays into reggae. Marley shouted “Wee-lay!” in his Jamaican accent throughout the music.
Sunday’s evening present will function an entire totally different vary of acts together with Dave Matthews, Sheryl Crow and Emmylou Harris.
Younger first took the stage together with his early collaborator Stephen Stills. The pair performed a revved up model of “For What It is Value,” swapping guitar solos on the basic hit they made as members of Buffalo Springfield in 1966.
Nelson introduced out all of the night’s artists to affix him for the Carter Household’s 1935 music, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” a longtime dwell favourite of his and the basic closing music for all of nation music.
It was clearly supposed to be the top, as Hawke took the mic and began to thank everybody for coming.
However the 90-year-old wasn’t able to cease. He interrupted and broke into Mac Davis’ “It is Laborious to Be Humble,” which Nelson and his sons recorded in 2019.
It was a humorous selection for a closing music, however its refrain was an ideal comedian coda for a person who had been drowned in adoration all evening:
“To know me is to like me, I should be a hell of a person. Oh lord, it is laborious to be humble. However I am doing the most effective that I can.”
