Loudilla, the eldest, had joined the George Jones Fan Club in 1960 the three of them, after watching him perform in Colorado Springs, drove to a radio station two hours from their home where he was spinning records, including Loretta Lynn’s “Honky Tonk Girl,” made for the small Zero label while Lynn was still living in Washington State. He elaborated: “The money tourists spent this week will be turned over many times in the coming weeks.”įan Fair had begun as the offshoot of the International Fan Club Organization (IFCO), the brainchild of three sisters from Colorado, Loudilla, Loretta, and Kay Johnson. Terry Clements, Metro director of tourism, told the Nashville Banner that the entire city would “reap the harvest” from Fan Fair. All they ask is that maybe we smile back at them.” Fan Fair only had a fraction of that, but they counted. And I don’t know if that was really the best day of my life.”īy 1984, Willie had pulled off the most unheard-of type of crossover-completely ubiquitous, yet so subtle that no one minded.īy the mid-80s, tourism was Nashville’s largest of what Pace referred to as “the offshoot industries spawned by country music”: “During 1982, 7.4 million people dropped in on our city.” Don Belcher, director of research for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, said, “We’ve got millions of people who come to this city each year just begging us to take their money. I think one night the front man didn’t show up, and I wound up fronting the band and doing the singing. “Somewhere along the way, I started being the singer. “What I always liked to do was be the guitar player,” he told an interviewer. Permanently Zen or permanently stoned-it’s a sliding scale with Willie, as are all things. In 1984 all manner of crossover was on the mind of everyone in all manner of pop.īy 1984, Willie had pulled off the most unheard-of type of crossover-completely ubiquitous, yet so subtle that no one minded. The collection’s title would retroactively brand the entire scene. A year later, on Columbia, Red Headed Stranger went gold within a month, so did Wanted: The Outlaws, a compilation put together by RCA of old tracks from Willie, Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. By 1974, he closed out his Atlantic deal with Phases and Stages, which sold four hundred thousand copies at a time when a Nashville album was lucky to reach the high five figures. He cut Shotgun Willie in two days and watched it outsell his entire previous catalog in half a year. Nelson began in the fifties as a songwriter and turned performer in the mid-sixties, abandoning Nashville for Austin and signing with Atlantic Records in 1971. In the seventies he’d co-drafted the blueprint for country crossing over to the rock audience by playing by the latter’s rules, just as he now did with pop. Willie was a master of it and had been for some time. In 1984 all manner of crossover was on the mind of everyone in all manner of pop. I didn’t know Julio was selling more records at that time than anybody in the world.” Of course not. Julio said, sure, he’d like to do a song with me. “I phoned Mark Rothbaum,” Nelson said, “and said, ‘Try to find out who Julio Iglesias is and see if he wants to cut a record with me.’ Mark found Julio in Los Angeles. “To All the Girls” had actually been Willie’s idea-he’d heard Julio Iglesias on the radio in London and his wife thought they’d sound good together. In 1984, he released three studio albums, and by the time of his nonappearance at Nashville’s International Country Music Fan Fair, he had already scored the year’s top country hit, per Billboard: “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” the most unlikely duet of the eighties. There was no shortage of other stars at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds, but Willie was, without a doubt, the biggest country music star in America that year. Just minutes earlier, the same voice boomed over the same PA system to the same teeming crowd that Willie Nelson was, in fact, sitting at the CBS Records booth with pen in hand, waiting to meet and greet his fans. You can’t blame anyone for being confused. And will not be signing autographs at the CBS booth.”
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