Musicians in Their Own Words – serie

Curating the most illuminating interviews with an American icon isn't easy. Willie Nelson's words can be found everywhere: TV, radio, movies, and on the many musical recordings he is responsible for over a decadeslong career. Nelson, the last surviving member of the Highwaymen, has outlasted most of his generation of outlaw country musicians. And he is still releasing albumsand featuring on tracks with current superstars such as Beyonce. Willie is an American institution.Willie Nelson on Willie Nelson is a collection of interviews that illuminates him not only as a musician but also as an actor, writer, political and animalrights activist, drug advocate, and environmentalist. These interviews with Nelson, many of them unseen for decades, range from the early 1970s to 2020 and take us through the ups and downs of his remarkable life and into the compositional history of his most beloved songs and albums. This collection reveals the icon as a complex and contradictory man, elusive at times, outspoken at others. It celebrates the life and work not only of Nelson but also a bevy of committed journalists, some of them amateur, whom Nelson welcomed, one and all, to share his sometimesradical worldview with an adoring public.Willie Nelson on Willie Nelson is the definitive source for anyone wanting to authentically encounter the legend in print.

"As close to an autobiography as we’re going to get from John Prine, Prine on Prine captures the inimitable, whimsical voice of one of our greatest songwriters . . . Nashville legend Holly Gleason knew the man and assembled this brilliant collection with a knowing eye and loving heart." —Joel Selvin, author of Fare Thee Well: The Final Chapter of the Grateful Dead's Long, Strange Trip and other booksCurated by a critic who knew him across five decades, Prine on Prine distills the essence of an iconic American songwriter: unguarded, unfiltered and real. In his own words, in his own time—on the road, in the kitchen, the Library of Congress, radio shows, movie scripts, and beyond.   John Prine hated giving interviews, but he said much when he talked. Embarrassed by fame, delighted by the smallest things, the first songwriter to read at the Library of Congress, and winner of the Pen Award for Literary Excellence, Prine saw the world unlike anyone else.   The songs from 1971’s John Prine remain spot-on takes of the human condition today, and his writing only got richer, funnier, and more incisive. The interviews in Prine on Prine trace his career evolution, his singular mind, his enduring awareness of social issues, and his acute love of life, from Studs Terkel’s radio interviews from the early ’70s to Mike Leonard’s Today Show packages from the ’80s, Cameron Crowe's early encounter to Ronni Lundy's Shuck Beans, Stack Cake cookbook, and Hot Rod magazine to No Depression’s cover story, through today.  Editor Holly Gleason enjoyed a longstanding relationship with Prine and his longtime co-manager, and she often traveled with him on tours in the late 1980s and represented him in the 2000s.

Prince on Prince gets behind the controversies to tell the Prince story in his own words.  

Prince is among the most respected and influential entertainers of the twentieth century, breaking sexual, racial, and creative barriers throughout his almost forty years in the spotlight. 

He was a multitalented studio artist, a master songwriter who produced and performed almost all of his own music on yearly LPs and countless singles and videos. He was one of the most dynamic live performers ever to hit the stage, a world-class dancer, and musician who’s still remembered for the best Super Bowl halftime performance in history. He fought for artists’ rights, changed his name to a glyph, and took a star turn in the Oscar-winner Purple Rain. 

But for all this, he was a quiet and private individual, reluctant to talk about the work he felt should speak for itself. This volume offers a chronological look at some of Prince’s most entertaining and revealing interviews, from 1978 and the release of his debut LP, For You, to a 2015 interview conducted only months before his untimely death at the age of fifty-seven. 

Prince’s memoir was left incomplete, but this volume offers a view of the man as he sought to portray himself in his own words to journalists of every status throughout his career.