Book Review

Willie Nelson (2008)

Joe Nick Patoski

Reviewed by Chris Willman | Apr 18, 2008

Chris Willman

Chris Willman is a senior music writer for Entertainment Weekly

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EW's GRADE

B+

Details Release Date: Apr 21, 2008; Writer: Joe Nick Patoski; Genres: Biography, Nonfiction; Publisher: Little Brown & Company

$FREEWHEELING WILLIE Joe Nick Patoski\'s impressively reported biography of Willie Nelson eschews psychoanalysis for many funny firsthand stories of the... | Willie Nelson: An Epic Life$

FREEWHEELING WILLIE Joe Nick Patoski's impressively reported biography of Willie Nelson eschews psychoanalysis for many funny firsthand stories of the country legend's life

Willie Nelson fans will have their blue eyes cryin' in the rain — with joy — over the arrival of such a richly reported bio. Willie might be the least conflicted hero in biographical history, once he trades being a ''bad drunk'' for placid pot and metaphysics. (When he cries after a snub from girlfriend Amy Irving, it's practically his only vulnerable moment in 500 pages.) But despite Joe Nick Patoski's reluctance to psychoanalyze his beatific subject in Willie Nelson, there are scores of funny firsthand stories in his account of how a ramshackle hillbilly career sparked an unlikely convergence of redneck, hippie, and Hollywood culture. B+

Originally posted Apr 18, 2008 Published in issue #988-989 Apr 25, 2008 Order article reprints

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