Bobbie Nelson's Amazing Grace
Willie's sister made you want to be a better person
Some people, not many, teach you how to do the right thing by example. One such angel among the Philistines was Bobbie Nelson, Willie’s sister and bandmember, who passed away this week at age 91. I was always intrigued with her onstage, with that long hair and honky tonk piano that took us back to Madge Suttee (Lefty Frizzell).
As soon as I got back to town in ‘95 I put in a request to interview Sister Bobbie and was told she’s very private and doesn’t like to talk about herself. She was friends with Clifford Antone, who lived in the same apartment building on Town Lake, so she’d come to Antone’s, by herself, and listen to the blues. If it was crowded, people would get up to give her their table, but she’d say she’d been sitting all day.
Ms. Nelson released a solo album Audiobiography in 2007, which finally made her available for interviews. What a delightful, gracious woman! To listen to her story, as tragic as it’s been magical, was an incredible experience. I interviewed her twice, once at her son Freddy Fletcher’s studio in Pedernales, and then the next week at Randalls Island in NYC during Farm Aid.
This was when the Statesman was starting to figure out multimedia with stories online, so I proposed a clip where Bobbie slid her keyboard out from under her bunk, while I filmed from where Willie sat when they jammed each night between shows. But the weed smoke was heavy on Willie’s bus at Randalls, so Bobbie wanted to move to an air-conditioned office nearby. She said I could film her keyboard setup the next night, when Willie was playing a benefit at the Hard Rock Café near Times Square. She gave me her cell # and said to call her before the show when I got to the Honeysuckle Rose, parked next to the Hard Rock.
There was a long line of celebrities and others waiting in line outside the bus, but after I called Bobbie, Gator came out and brought us aboard. I had an ex-girlfriend with me- a homesick Texan living in NYC. There was Willie in the booth, smoking joints with Woody Harrelson, and Bobbie in the back, seeing me with a wave. Willie’s daughter Amy greeted my friend warmly with a cold beer. Sonja was in heaven! After about 10 minutes I had what I needed so I said let’s go. It was so unlike me, the backstage squatter, that it stunned Sonja. "Did she tell us we had to leave?" she asked, indignantly, as we headed out. I said, listen, we could've stayed on the bus for two hours and Bobbie Nelson wouldn't have said a thing. But my job’s done and there are people waiting to get on.
Maybe over the years some folks have taken advantage of Bobbie Nelson's incredible graciousness. But it wasn't going to be me, no way.
Here’s the story I wrote from my interviews with Bobbie Lee in 2007. It’s included in my book, “All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas” (2017 UNT Press).
That's a true pro, getting the interview and then leaving, not taking advantage of Ms. Nelson's generosity with her time.