Willie Nelson began performing music as a child growing up in Abbott, Texas. After his father died and his mother ran away, Nelson and his sister Bobbie were raised by their grandparents, who encouraged both children to play instruments. Willie picked up the guitar, and by the time he was 7, he was already writing songs. Bobbie learned to play piano, eventually meeting -- and later marrying -- fiddler Bud Fletcher, who invited both of the sibling to join his band. Nelson had already played with with Raychecks' Polka Band, but with Fletcher, he acted as the group's frontman. Willie stayed with Fletcher throughout high school. Upon his graduation, he joined the Air Force, but had to leave shortly afterward, when he became plagued by back problems. Following his disenrollment from the service, he began looking for full-time work. After he worked several part-time jobs, he landed a job as a country DJ at Fort Worth's KCNC in 1954. Nelson continued to sing in honky tonks as he worked as a DJ, deciding to make a stab at recording career by 1956. That year, he headed to Vancouver, Washington where he recorded Leon Payne's "Lumberjack." At that time, Payne was a DJ and he plugged "Lumberjack" on the air, which eventually resulted in sales of 3,000 -- a respectable figure for an independent single, but not enough to gain much attention. For the next few years, he continued to DJ and sing in clubs. During this time, he sold "Family Bible" to a guitar instructor for $50 and when the song became a hit for Claude Gray in 1960, Nelson decided to move to Nashville the following year to try his luck. Though his nasal voice and jazzy, off-center phrasing didn't win him many friends -- several demos were made and then rejected by various labels -- his songwriting ability didn't go unnoticed, and soon Hank Cochran helped Willie land a publishing contract at Pamper Music. Ray Price, who co-owned Pamper Music, recorded Nelson's "Night Life" and invited him to join his touring band, the Cherokee Cowboys, as a bassist.

Arriving at the beginning of 1961, Price's invitation began a watershed year for Nelson. Not only did he play with Price -- eventually taking members of the Cherokee Cowboys to form his own touring band -- but his songs also provided major hits for several other artists. Faron Young took "Hello Walls" to number one for nine weeks, Billy Walker made "Funny How Time Slips Away" into a Top 40 country smash, and Patsy Cline made "Crazy" into a Top Ten pop crossover hit. Earlier in the year, he signed a contract with Liberty Records, and began releasing a series of singles that were usually drenched in strings. "Willingly," a duet with his then-wife Shirley Collie, became a Top Ten hit for Nelson early in 1962 and it was followed by another Top Ten single, "Touch Me," later that year. Both singles made it seem like Nelson was primed to become a star, but his career stalled just as quickly as it had taken off and he was soon charting in the lower regions of the Top 40. Liberty closed its country division in 1964, the same year Roy Orbison had a hit with "Pretty Paper."

When the Monument recordings failed to become hits, Nelson moved to RCA Records in 1965, the same year became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Over the next seven years, Willie had a steady stream of minor hits, highlighted by the number 13 hit "Bring Me Sunshine" in 1969. Toward the end of his stint with RCA, he had grown frustrated with the label, who had continually tried to shoehorn him into the heavily-produced Nashville sound. By 1972, he wasn't even able to reach the country Top 40. Discouraged by his lack of success, Nelson decided to retire from country music, moving back to Austin, Texas after a brief and disasterous sojourn into pig farming. Once he arrived in Austin, Nelson realized that many young rock fans were listening to country music along with the traditional honky tonk audience. Spotting an opportunity, Willie began performing again, scrapping his pop-oriented Nashville sound and image for a rock and folk-influenced redneck outlaw image. Soon, he had earned a contract with Atlantic Records.

Shotgun Willie (1973), Nelson's first album for Atlantic, was evidence of the shift of his musical style, and although it initially didn't sell well, it earned good reviews and cultivated a dedicated cult following. By the fall of 1973, his version of Bob Wills' "Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer)" had cracked the country Top 40. The following year, he delivered the concept album Phases and Stages, which increased his following even more with the hit singles "Bloody Mary Morning" and "After the Fire is Gone." But the real commercial breakthrough didn't arrive until 1975, when he severed ties with Atlantic and signed to Columbia Records, who gave him complete creative control of his records. Willie's first album for Columbia, The Red Headed Stranger, was a spare concept album about a preacher, featuring only his guitar and his sister's piano. The label was reluctant to release with such stark arrangements, but they relented and it became a huge hit, thanks to Nelson's understated cover of Roy Acuff's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."

Following the breakthrough success of The Red Headed Stranger, as well as Waylon Jennings' simultaneous success, outlaw country -- so named because it worked outside of the confines of the Nashville industry -- became a sensation, and RCA compiled the various artists album Wanted: The Outlaws, using material Nelson, Jennings, Tompall Glaser and Jessi Colter had previously recorded for the label. The compilation boasted a number one single in the form of the newly-recorded Jennings and Nelson duet "Good Hearted Woman," which was also named the Country Music Association's single of the year. For the next five years, Nelson consistently charted on both the country and pop charts, with "Remembe Me," "If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time," and "Uncloudy Day" becoming Top Ten country singles in 1976; "I Love You a Thousand Ways" and "the Mary Kay Place duet "Something to Brag About" were Top Ten country singles the following year.

Nelson enjoyed his most successful year to date in 1978, as he charted with two very dissimilar albums. Waylon and Willie, his first duet album with Jennings, was a major success early in the year, spawning the signature song "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." Later in the year, he released Stardust, a string-augmented collection of pop standards produced by Booker T. Jones. Most observers believed that the unconventional album would derail Nelson's career, but it unexpectedly became one of the most successful records in his catalog, spending almost ten years in the country charts and eventually selling over four million copies. After the success of Stardust, Willie branched out into film, appearing in the Robert Redford movie The Electric Horseman in 1979 and starring in Honeysuckle Rose the following year. The latter spawned the hit "On the Road Again," which became another one of Nelson's signature songs.

Willie continued to have hits throughout the early '80s, when he had a major crossover success in 1982 with a cover of Elvis Presley's hit "Always on My Mind." The single spent two weeks at number one and crossed over to number five on the pop charts, sending the album of the same name to number two on the pop charts, as well as quadruple-platinum status. Over the next two years, he had hit duet albums with Merle Haggard (1983's Poncho and Lefty) and Waylon Jennings (1982's WWII and 1983's Take It to the Limit), while "To All the Girls I've Loved Before," a duet with Latin pop star Julio Iglesias, became another major crossover success in 1984, peaking at number five on the pop charts and number one on the singles chart.

Following a string of number one singles in early 1985, including "Highwayman," the first single from the Highwaymen, a supergroup he formed with Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, Nelson's popularity gradually began to erode. A new generation of artists had captured the attention of the country audience, which began to drastically cut into his own audience. For the remainder of the decade, he recorded less frequently and remained on the road; he also continued to do charity work, most notably Farm Aid, an annual concert designed to proviede aid to ailing farmers that he founded in 1985. While he career was declining, an old demon began to creep up on Willie -- the IRS. In November of 1990, he was given a bill for $16.7 million in back taxes. During the following year, almost all of his assests -- including several houses, studios, farms and various property -- were taken away, and to help pay his bill, he released the double-album The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories. Originally released as two separate albums, the records were marketed through television commercials and all the profits were directed to the IRS. By 1993 -- the year he turned 60 -- his debts had been paid off, and he relaunched his recording career with Across the Borderline, an ambitious album produced by Don Was and featuring cameos by Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Paul Simon, Sinead O'Connor, David Crosby and Kris Kristofferson. The record received strong reviews and became his first solo album to appear in the pop charts since 1985.

After the release of Across the Borderline, Nelson continued to work steadily, releasing at least one album a year and constantly touring. In 1993, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, but by that time, he had already become a living legend for all country music fans across the world. Signing to Island for 1996's Spirit, he resurfaced two years later with Teatro, produced by Daniel Lanois.