Willie Nelson On The Road Again

Who says Willie Nelson ain't no Superman

Published August 07, 2011, 12:13 AM Review: Who says Willie Nelson ain't no Superman? After Willie Nelson had surgery for carpal tunnel a few years ago, his doctor told him to go home and shut up, the gray-braided country-music icon told the audience Saturday night at Bayfront Festival Park. “So I wrote this song,” he said, leading into “Superman” — a song about trying to do more than he can and learning that he ain’t Clark Kent’s alter ego.

By: Christa Lawler , Duluth News Tribune

After Willie Nelson had surgery for carpal tunnel a few years ago, his doctor told him to go home and shut up, the gray-braided country-music icon told the audience Saturday night at Bayfront Festival Park.

“So I wrote this song,” he said, leading into “Superman” — a song about trying to do more than he can and learning that he ain’t Clark Kent’s alter ego.

The old man didn’t make much of a case for himself. Nelson ripped through about 30 songs — one bleeding immediately into another with rarely any chatter — during a 90-minute set that ended with him calling out “Thank y’all” and leaving at the back of the stage.

Okay, so maybe Superman would have had an encore. How about Superman-ish? After all, on Friday night, the 78-year-old was on the stage at We Fest near Detroit Lakes, Minn., and he’s got five more shows next week.

Nelson took the stage unceremoniously. All of the sudden, he was just there, a short figure dressed in a black cowboy hat, black shirt and black pants with a red, white and blue guitar strap, his signature hair braided to just below his collar bone, shorter than in years past. Recordings of his songs had been playing in the park before the show started, and kicked in again afterward.

He stayed true to the Willie-isms that fans have come to expect with his shows: Opening with “Whiskey River,” a Texas flag as his backdrop, tossing red bandanas into the crowd and trying on the cowboy hats that were tossed on stage. He pointed at the audience, and he pointed at the sky and occasionally broke out into a big grin.

Nelson took plenty of solos on his guitar, ripping away at it as if there were something hidden inside.

He filled the middle of the set with a string of hits: “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys,” “Angel Flying too Close to the Ground,” “On the Road Again” and “Always on My Mind.

On the Road Again by Brendan Kiley - Seattle Music - The Stranger ...

, To be exact—and thinking that the man needs a better publicist. I called her earlier with some simple questions: about his upcoming gig at the Snoqualmie Casino, about his marijuana activism, and about an intratribal controversy that erupted earlier this month when the Snoqualmie Tribal Council passed a resolution legalizing marijuana for the day of Willie's upcoming concert. Relatively innocuous, right? Willie had even gone on Larry King I have no comment." But why not? "I don't know what else to tell you." But Mr. Nelson has been a longtime supporter of marijuana legalization and you've been working with him for so long—I don't understand why you're so gun-shy about this. "I'm going to have to go. I'm not going to answer any of your questions." But this kind of tribal resolution has happened before, right? "I have no idea." You have no idea? " I have no idea."

This continues until she eventually hangs up on me. The reaction within the Snoqualmie Tribe was as polarized as the publicist's. After news of the resolution leaked, the tribal council told newspapers that it was just a lighthearted "joke" in honor of Willie—but Hereditary Chief Jerry Enick was furious. He issued a statement condemning the council for the resolution: "This goes against all Native values and morals and has brought great shame and embarrassment upon our people, our leadership, and our great nation."

Some, like Seattle attorney Gabriel Galanda—an enrolled member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in Mendocino County, California—have come out swinging for cultivating marijuana on tribal lands as another revenue source alongside fireworks, tobacco, and gambling. In an online article earlier this year, Galanda wrote: "Indian Country has the sovereignty, land base, agricultural savvy, and business intangibles to really make legalized marijuana happen. For some rural tribes, those attributes are all they have to leverage economically."

Washington tribes have independence from state law that might allow their members to cultivate marijuana. (It's complicated, but as Galanda explains it: Generally, state law has little or no force in Indian Country, but things get messy from state to state and from tribe to tribe. In Washington, the state has limited criminal and civil jurisdiction. Galanda argues that the state has no civil regulatory jurisdiction—the key to cultivating and regulating marijuana—on tribal land.) But despite state law, there are still the Feds to worry about—"the likelihood that the US would invoke its federal trust responsibility in this regard (after centuries of conveniently ignoring that duty)," Galanda writes.