Bobbie Nelson, who performed piano alongside her youthful brother, Willie Nelson, for the higher a part of their lives, died on Thursday. She was 91.
Her dying was introduced by Willie’s publicist: “Her magnificence, grace, magnificence and expertise made this world a greater place. She was the primary member of Willie’s band, as his pianist and singer. Our hearts are damaged and she or he can be deeply missed. However we're so fortunate to have had her in our lives.”
No explanation for dying was given.
As an anchor in Willie’s aptly named backing band the Household — his son Lukas would grow to be a part of the group in 2013 — Bobbie Nelson offered supple, sympathetic assist, in a position to play greasy honky-tonk with the identical ease as she did Western swing. The siblings performed music collectively as kids; their skilled connection fashioned when Willie started to develop his outlaw nation within the early Nineteen Seventies, simply after he spent a number of irritating years in Nashville. Bobbie performed on “Shotgun Willie,” the 1973 album on which he developed his blueprint for outlaw nation, then stayed together with her brother for the remainder of her life, discovering a cushty residence inside the Household. She hardly ever stepped exterior of the group; in 2007, at age 76, she launched her debut album, “Audiobiography.”
Willie harbored a deep love for Bobbie, whom he affectionately and jokingly known as his “little sister” onstage. (Willie will flip 89 on April 29.) In contrast to her brother, Bobbie didn't partake of marijuana; she was Christian and a teetotaler. Regardless of their variations in temperament, the pair have been shut all through their complete life — she as soon as claimed they by no means had a combat — and the siblings documented their relationship in a joint memoir, “Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Household Band,” revealed in 2020.
Whereas selling the guide, Willie remarked, “Sister Bobbie is 10 occasions a greater musician than I'm.”
He wasn’t her solely admirer. Americana artist Amanda Shires wrote on social media, “she was the primary instance I had of a girl enjoying music whereas additionally having a household.” Nation singer Margo Value tweeted, “No person performed piano like Bobbie Nelson and no person ever will. She was the epitome of sophistication, grace, and elegance... .”
Born on January 1, 1931, in Abbott, Texas, Bobbie was the primary baby of Myrle Marie and Ira Doyle Nelson, who have been youngsters after they grew to become mother and father. The couple separated shortly after the delivery of her brother, Willie, with the 2 kids being raised by their paternal grandparents.
Bobbie’s grandmother taught her play pipe organ and she or he started singing gospel music in church. Her grandfather purchased her a piano when she was 6. She recalled, “The primary time I ever performed the piano, I assumed, ‘I’ll by no means be lonely once more.’” Inside a couple of years, she and Willie would frequently play music collectively round the home and in church and faculty.
At 16, she met an Military veteran named Bud Fletcher. The pair married inside a 12 months. Fletcher didn’t play music, however he noticed one thing particular within the instrumental chemistry between his spouse and her brother, so he fashioned Bud Fletcher & the Texans, enlisting the Nelson patriarch, Ira, as rhythm guitarist. Because the band bought off the bottom, Bobbie and Bud began a household. When she was 19, she gave delivery to Randy; by 23, she had two extra sons, Michael and Freddy. The couple’s relationship began to fracture in 1955 when Fletcher’s mother and father sued for custody of their kids, claiming Bobbie was unfit as a result of she spent her nights enjoying piano in beer joints.
Distraught, Bobbie left the band and took up workplace work, getting a job with the Hammond Organ Co. in Fort Price. She regained rights to her kids however wasn’t in a position to salvage her marriage. After the divorce, Bobbie moved to Austin, the place she demonstrated Hammond organs throughout the day and performed lounge piano at evening.
By the daybreak of the Nineteen Seventies, Bobbie had cycled by two further marriages and her sons had reached maturity, so when her brother Willie summoned her to play on his preliminary classes for Atlantic in 1973, she was keen to just accept. Willie signed with Atlantic after a creatively irritating run at RCA. His new label inspired experimentation, so he augmented his street band with members of Doug Sahm’s Sir Douglas Quintet, including Bobbie as the ultimate component to the combo. Throughout these New York Metropolis classes, they wound up with the core of “Shotgun Willie,” the album that helped outline the outlaw spirit of the Nineteen Seventies, and “The Troublemaker,” a gospel report that demonstrated the breadth of Willie’s imaginative and prescient.
Willie didn’t have a mainstream hit till Columbia launched “Purple Headed Stranger” in 1975, however these early Atlantic information established the aesthetic he’d mine for the remainder of his profession. Bobbie saved him grounded because the Household wove collectively nation boogie, blues shuffles, cowboy ballads, pop requirements and open-ended jams, enjoying with the dexterity wanted for a band whose performances might be as improv-heavy because the Grateful Lifeless’s.
After “Purple Headed Stranger,” the membership of the Household remained agency, with Bobbie Nelson forming the band’s core alongside drummer Paul English and harmonica participant Mickey Raphael. Bobbie’s fortunes have been typically tied to Willie’s — he bought her a lavish Bösendorfer grand piano in 1976 which the IRS confiscated throughout his protracted battles with the group; pals of the household purchased it again for her — however her modest presence and swish approach helped maintain the Household full of life into the twenty first century.
Bobbie’s closing gig was alongside Willie on the Whitewater Amphitheater in New Braunfels, Texas, on Oct. 9, 2021.
She is survived by Willie and her son Freddy Fletcher.
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