Willie Nelson

June 26, 2020

Starting with how he got the childhood nickname "Booger Red," writer Kirsch's new graphic biography spins the extraordinary journey of American singer/songwriter Willie Nelson (b. 1933) like a popular record. The pitch and tempo of Willie's life supply the backbeat, from learning to hold a crowd's attention with country swinger Bob Wills, to disc jockey positions that allowed him to practice recording and even release his own music, and his maturation as a subtle, honest songwriter. Finally arriving in Nashville, he achieved a No. 1 country hit with Hello Walls, leading to Patsy Cline's immortal recording of Crazy. Affairs, divorce, artistic failures, and his general sense of nonconformity brought Willie to another dry spot in his career--poor-selling albums and a major house fire. Out of this personal crossroads came the rise of his brand of outlaw country and hard-won, unequivocal success, even as legal and personal misfortunes continued to befall the ever-resilient musician. VERDICT Teaming with many different artists, Kirsch's work lovingly delivers a visual concert for the famed musical icon, capturing the rhythm of his life in black and white with a "greatest hits" approach utilizing Willie's own lyrics for insight into pivotal moments.--Douglas Rednour, Georgia State Univ. Libs., Atlanta

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2020
A graphic biography that highlights the phases and stages of the musician's extraordinary career. In this collective portrait featuring Kirsch's text, seven different illustrators--based all over the world, from Portland, Oregon, to Norway and Turkey--demonstrate the global reach of Willie Nelson (b. 1933). There's a lot of life to compress into just 88 pages, and the narrative works best in the early stages of Nelson's life, documenting his humble origins in the Texas Hill Country, where other kids teased him with the nose-picking nickname "Booger Red." The story wends its way through Nelson's different odd jobs (selling encyclopedias, pumping gas, serving as an on-air DJ at a small radio station) and a series of wives, children, and infidelities--just the sort of life that could inspire a country songbook. Nelson doesn't even arrive in Austin until Chapter 5, which leaves only two chapters to summarize the recording career that has made him an icon even beyond the country charts. In comic-book fashion, the illustrators cover a variety of (mostly familiar) anecdotes from his life: how his first wife sewed him into a bedsheet and beat him with a broom handle, how he tried to sell many of his early songs for a pittance, and how his nasal voice and idiosyncratic guitar playing led many in the music industry to believe that he could never make a living singing his own songs. After decades of struggle, his ascent was swift and significant, as he became known as much more than a songwriter, singing the Great American Songbook and becoming a Hollywood star. The turn of the century has found him settling into elder-statesman status while continuing to tour and record. For readers interested in Nelson's long, winding road to stardom, this straightforward graphic biography puts his success in perspective. A diverse crew of illustrators pool their talents on behalf of a singular artist.

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July 27, 2020
This anthologized graphic bio packs the eventful 60-plus-year career of the deceptively laid-back dynamo musician Willie Nelson into such a slim package that the attempt can’t help but fall short. Taking a uniformly upbeat approach, Kirsch (Pride of the Decent Man) and a half dozen other artists (each illustrating a chapter in styles ranging from moody to simplistic) start with Nelson’s small-town Texas childhood and his wandering, “sometimes wildly contradictory” young adulthood during which he taught Sunday school and began enjoying marijuana. Despite his laconic persona, Nelson is a scrappy hustler, singing and playing guitar in seemingly any bar with a stage and shilling his DJ recordings. After years of struggle, he moves to Nashville and grinds away as a songwriter, finally getting a hit when Patsy Cline records “Crazy.” Uncomfortable with the Nashville industry machine’s “forced polishings,” Nelson returns to Texas in the 1970s, where his eccentric style brings together “hippies and rednecks” and helps birth the “outlaw music” genre. Nelson’s later decades—founding Farm Aid and supergroup the Highwaymen, and hitting setbacks such as owing the IRS more than $16 million—are flatly recounted (though marital affairs add some drama). It’s a just-the-highlights approach, which, despite evident enthusiasm for Nelson, can’t quite capture the enduring appeal of the “elder statesman” of country.

August 1, 2020

Gr 9 Up-This frank account takes singer/songwriter Willie Nelson from "Booger Red" (a childhood nickname of rousingly icky origin) to "country music icon" and "elder statesman." Readers get too little about his technical musicianship but heapin' helpings of granular information about his early struggles to break into the music biz, the consequences of his weakness for the "constant temptations of willing women," and his relations with record companies and other musicians. Raised in rural Texas by his grandparents, who gave him his first guitar at age six, Nelson tried his hand at odd jobs from encyclopedia salesman to DJ on local radio, made his first recording in 1955, had his first number one hit in 1961, and has been a fixture on the country music scene ever since. In the course of writing "Crazy," "On the Road Again," and other perennial country classics, he also became closely associated with two causes: Farm Aid and the legalization of marijuana-his efforts for the latter featuring several arrests and such highlights as smoking a joint on the roof of the White House. Extensive modeling and shading give the monochrome art in the squared off panels considerable realism (a view of the performer caught butt naked with a girlfriend by yet another enraged wife is particularly memorable), even if Nelson's spectacularly craggy current features are prettied up in late scenes. Still, his seven-decade career makes a yarn as significant as it is colorful. VERDICT There's a bit too much inconsequential detail here, but upper grade fans of Reinhard Kleist's Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness or popular music in general will flock to this.-John Peters, Children's Literature Consultant, New York

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.