Mike’s Corner: ‘Do you guys do any Willie?’

By Mike Wagoner
Reader Contributor

New Year’s Day has a kind of feeling to it doesn’t it? Sometimes, not a very good one. For me, this time around I found myself lookin’ back at all those years I played and sang in bars for grocery money and, if tips were good, a little fancy beer. It began to dawn on me that for the most part I played other people’s tunes. I benefited from their work… not in a huge way, but I had some fun and drank for free a lot, which is sort of interesting. What other job is there where drinking is not only tolerated but sometimes even encouraged. 

“I’ll buy you a beer if you play Country Roads again.” 

“OK.” 

I remember one gig really well… it was the mid-’80s… I had a trio called “Trapper Creek.” We were booked at a place in Sandpoint on First Avenue… It was either called Shenanigans or the Middle Earth Tavern. When we pulled up in our band rig to set up, there were 14 Harleys parked out front in a tight formation… each front tire was angled the same way. We sorta looked at each other thinkin’ “this might be interesting.” 

Turns out they were the real deal … not white collar weekend guys. They were the “Gypsy Jokers.” We knew right away ’cause it said so on the back of their seasoned jackets. They had some women with ’em too, who also looked like they could tear you a new one. 

It was during our first set in between songs when one of them scampered over and asked, “Do you guys do any Willie? See that big guy at the pool table lookin’ over? He really likes Willie… Do you do any? I hope so.” 

Well, the man he was alluding too could have had his own climate. We took a break… I grabbed my guitar and said, “follow me.” We went into the bathroom and I showed them three Willie tunes I had recently learned… he was all over the radio in those days, and luckily most of his stuff is three or four chords. 

I also had played around with trying to sound like him and had pretty good luck with it. Most any voice coach would have told the guy, “You’re not singin’ right, Willie. You’re too much in your head… it’s too nasally sounding.” 

Well, Willie probably never had any formal training… neither did Bob or Neil right.? They all did just fine.

Anyway… back to live action. We went out… played the tunes probably two or three times over the course of the night… they bought us beers… shook our hands and helped us carry our stuff out at closing time. 

I feel like I owe numerous artists for the mileage I got out of their work, but especially to Willie Nelson for that particular night. I feel he may have just saved me from a rather awkward situation.