All Praise Willie

In January, on a very cold, rainy night not in Georgia (RIP, Tony Joe White) but in Nashville, I took my mother to the Bridgestone Arena to see a star-studded tribute to Willie Nelson, which was heralded as a commemoration of his eighty-sixth year and titled “Willie: Life & Songs of an American Outlaw.” By now the show may well have been broadcast on the A&E channel (as I write the date has not yet been set), and if so, I hope y’all saw it because it was pretty damn amazing. Mama and I are inveterate concertgoers. We’ve seen everybody from Petula Clark and the Carpenters to Edgar Winter’s White Trash (not entirely her idea) to the Rolling Stones. I knew she loved Willie and at least a half dozen of the umpteen folks featured in the show, but the real reason I invited her to go was to see Kris Kristofferson, whom she worships like no other. One summer night years ago, we sat on our Seaside, Florida, front porch with a couple of friends and a boom box and listened to about 150 times, in tears, naturally. Admittedly, we were fueled by more than one pitcher of frozen