Willie Nelson’s sister Bobbie Nelson is dead

They made music together for eight decades. Even as children, Bobbie and Willie Nelson learned their first traditionals. When she was six and he was four, their grandparents who raised them taught them the song “The Great Speckled Bird”. They learned their instruments in the parish of the Texan town of Abott.

A lifelong connection that has now come to an end. Bobbie died Thursday morning at the age of 91. “Peaceful and in the bosom of the family,” says a statement from the bereaved.

The country outlaw liked to refer to Bobbie as his “little sister” even though she was a little older than him. “She was always a much better musician than me,” said Willie Nelson, now 88, all too often. They recorded albums together and in 2020 released the duo biography Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band, in which they describe the vibrations of their eventful lives.

Although they had always played together, it wasn’t until the early 1970s that they started working together professionally. Legendary producer Jerry Wexler brought Willie Nelson to Atlantic Records after a creative dry spell. The idea was to play classic tracks from the outlaw era. A mixture of sound and image that will characterize Willie Nelson from now on. Completely free in the choice of his band, he immediately thought of Bobbie. “She was the crucial spark that I was missing,” he recalls.

During this time, the albums “The Troublemaker”, “Shotgun Willie” and “Phrases and Stages” were created, on which Billie became a permanent member of the studio crew with her congenial assignments. She soon became indispensable for live shows too, and the band The Family was formed in 1973, and she became the singer and pianist.

A task that she artistically fulfills over the years. From the mid-1980s, duet records with brother Willie. The solo album “Audiobiography” was not released until 2008. In 2017, Billie was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. In October 2021, Bobbie had one last performance together with her brother: Of course in Texas, at the Whitewater Amphitheater in New Braunfels.

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