They don’t call him Shotgun Willie for nothing…
Actually, Willie Nelson got his nickname from a gunfight with his daughter’s abusive husband, when the country singer jumped out of his truck and shot out his then-son-in-law’s tire after the two had exchanged gunfire earlier in the day. (When police showed up and asked what happened to the tire, Willie told them that the husband “must have ran over a bullet.”)
But that’s far from the only firearm story involving the country music legend.
At one point, Willie famously stopped a gunfight in an Alabama parking garage when the police got into a shootout while his bus was parked there after a show. According to Nelson’s long-time stage manager/bus driver Randy “Poodie” Locke in Willie’s autobiography:
“He walks off the bus wearing cutoffs and tennis shoes, and he’s got two huge Colt .45 revolvers stuck in his waist. The barrels are so long they stick out the bottom of his cutoffs.
Two shining mother****ing pistols in plain sight of a bunch of cops nervous as sh*t.
Willie just walks over and says, ‘What’s the trouble?’ Well he’s got some kind of aura to him that just cools everything out. The cops put up their guns, the people climb off the concrete, and pretty soon Willie is signing autographs.”
But the wildest story of Willie and his guns doesn’t involve him shooting at anyone, but instead shooting at books…well, one book in particular.
This story comes to us from Phil Kaufman, who’s one of the most well-known (even infamous) tour managers in history, and at the time was serving as tour manager for Emmylou Harris while she was opening up for Willie.
And one day, Poodie Locke comes over to the other camp’s bus and asked Phil if he could ride on their bus for a while.
When Phil questioned him about what was going on, Poodie told him that Willie and his band members had taken the Gideons Bibles from their hotel rooms, and were shooting a gun at the Bible while taking bets on which chapter the bullet would land in.
It sounds absolutely insane, and obviously pretty unsafe, but it’s true, and clearly, not very conducive to getting much rest if you have to listen to that all night…
“Well, Willie and the boys are back there. They got these bibles from the hotel, The Gideons Bible, and they’re taking bets. They’ve got a gun, and they’re shooting the gun into the Bible and they’re taking bets on which particular chapter of the Bible the bullet will land in.
So you’ll hear somebody scream out, ‘Deuteronomy!’ and then ‘Bam!’ The gun goes off. There’s a pause and everybody starts cheering. And then you hear, ‘Proverbs!’ Bam! The gun goes off. Pause, somebody starts cheering…
So they’re taking bets and firing a gun into a Bible. And Poodie just wanted to have a little bit of quiet.”
Wild. Not sure who would even think of that, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to do you any favors when it comes time to meet your maker.
