Special Contributor
The story usually goes something like this: Willie Nelson grew up in Texas and moved to Nashville as a successful songwriter but failed to make a dent as an artist, so he left to carve his own influential outlaw path — specifically by moving to Austin, a city that has shared the Lone Star icon’s mystique ever since.
That tale, though widely shared, isn’t quite complete. From his hometown of Abbott — about an hour’s drive south of Dallas and Fort Worth — a young Nelson would take the train to Dallas, not Austin, to go to the State Fair or check out the Big D Jamboree. His first radio show as a DJ was on Fort Worth’s KCNC; he smoked the first of many, many joints in the Stockyards. Perhaps most important, the first album he recorded in Texas after that vaunted return from Nashville was not made in Austin, but at a small studio in Garland. It was there, at what was then Autumn Sound Studios, that Nelson and the Family Band recorded Red Headed Stranger — the 1975 album that would change both his career and the trajectory of country music forever.
“You might know that the album kind of launched the outlaw movement, but then when you learn it was recorded down the street, it’s like … outlaw country was invented in … Dallas?!” says John Pedigo, a local producer and musician who is the musical director of the album’s upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations in Garland. “Across the history of Dallas music, it’s always like that. Austin seems to get the lion’s share of the credit for things that happen elsewhere.”
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In part to correct those kinds of assumptions, Garland Cultural Arts and KXT (91.7 FM) are pulling out all the stops to spotlight this oft-overlooked chapter in the suburb‘s history. Over May 16 and 17, Garland will host a screening of the 1986 film Red Headed Stranger, a talk about the album and film, an exhibit of Nelson memorabilia, and even have one of the legend’s tour buses available for fan photo ops. Free sets by a number of local artists, including Angel White, Ottoman Turks, Remy Reilly and more, will take place around the Garland town square on the afternoon of May 17.
Those shows will be followed by the marquee event of the weekend: a special tribute concert featuring Asleep at the Wheel’s Ray Benson, the Old 97’s’ Rhett Miller, Joshua Ray Walker and Max and Heather Stalling, who, along with a specially assembled backing band, will play through Red Headed Stranger and share stories about the album’s significance.
The story of how, exactly, the Red Headed Stranger wound up in Garland centers on two pillars of the Dallas music scene — and Nelson’s eye for a deal. Mickey Raphael was still living in his native Dallas when he first became Nelson’s harmonica player, a role that he still holds today. At that point, though, it wasn’t quite a full-time gig, and in doing other work around town Raphael had gotten to know engineer Phil York, who would ultimately become one of the city’s most important musical forces, albeit a mostly behind-the-scenes one.
“Willie said he had this idea for a record, and asked if I knew of any studios in Texas,” Raphael says. “I knew Phil had just started working at a new studio called Autumn Sound, so I recommended that.”
The late York told the Dallas Observer he tried to sweeten the deal. “I invited them in for a free session at Autumn Sound,” he said. “No strings attached, no cost. Just come on in and see if you like it. Willie’s sister, Bobbie, absolutely fell in love with that Bösendorfer piano. Who wouldn’t? At the time, it was bought for $17,000, and that was the discount price.” It was also convenient, according to Raphael, who says that when the band played Dallas, their “home base” was the Holiday Inn in Garland.
It was just one of the wildcard choices that wound up making Red Headed Stranger so special. Nelson also elected to record with his touring band, the Family, rather than veteran studio musicians, and he didn’t even rehearse the intimate concept album with them. He just shared his notes and compositions on a “stack of papers and napkins” he brought into the studio, according to Raphael. “We heard the songs for the first time there, and just spontaneously reacted to them — maybe playing two or three times through before moving on to the next,” he says.
The whole process took less than a week; the resulting album, despite confusing label executives who thought it couldn’t be more than a demo, was certified gold within a year of its release and includes Nelson’s first No. 1 country song as an artist after almost 20 years of singles, “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain.” Suddenly, the talent who had been hiding in plain sight was a superstar — the face of the outlaws and a singular American voice.
A half-century later, a slew of local artists (and Benson, who hails from Philadelphia but has plenty of Texas ties) will try to recapture that magic onstage in Garland — to pay tribute to the quiet, understated, deeply felt album that had such a huge impact.
“I have been working on learning a few songs off the record for the event, and I’m always kind of shocked by how deceptively complex Willie’s songs are,” says Rhett Miller, front man of the Old 97’s, who also happened to record his first album as a teenager in the same Garland studio (which is still operating, but is now called Audio Dallas Recording Studio).
Translating the off-center release, with its interludes and spare arrangements, to a live setting will be a challenge in some ways. It’s very much a studio album, clean and built for a home stereo — though Nelson asked York to do away with most edits and effects. But all the esteemed participants in the upcoming tribute are excited to take it on — to spotlight not just a Texas icon but an important piece of North Texas’ too-often ignored musical history.
“There’s all these important recording studios throughout history that everybody knows about,” Miller says. “But nobody talks about this tiny little room in Garland where such an important thing happened.”
The Red Headed Stranger 50th anniversary events will be May 16-17 in downtown Garland. The tribute concert will be May 17 at 8 p.m. at the Granville Arts Center in Garland. Tickets for the concert are $75-$105. For a full list of events and prices, visit garlandarts.com.
Natalie Weiner is a Dallas-based writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Billboard and Rolling Stone.
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