Today is Willie Nelson’s 84th birthday. What do you get the man who seems to have everything? How about the chance to play side by side with his boyhood hero and musical idol, legendary gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt? Let’s go.
When it comes to musical inspirations, Willie Nelson has a list of the usual suspects: Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, Ray Price, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow — but for Willie they’re just warm-up acts. The headline is reserved for one man, gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. Willie has spent his entire career chasing the sound that only Django could produce. “His method of playing — the tone, the speed was just incredible,” says Willie. “I think he was the best guitar player ever.”
To understand Willie’s obsession with Django, you have to understand Django. Born in Belgium in 1910, Django Reinhardt grew up in Romani encampments near Paris. The Romani culture is a gypsy culture, making their livings through tradecraft and entertainment. Young Django was an accomplished violin, guitar, and banjo player by the time he was 12, busking in local pubs and cafes. By the time he was 15, he was supporting himself as a guitar player.
At 18, Django’s musical career was just taking off when tragedy struck. One night, Django bumped a table in his wagon, sending a candle to the floor. In minutes, the wagon was engulfed in flame. Django managed to save his wife and himself but severely burned the left side of his body in the process. Miraculously, he would recover, learning to play the guitar again, with one astonishing difference: Django could no longer use the ring finger and pinky on his fret hand. He taught himself to play using just his remaining fingers, enlisting the help of his injured fingers only for cord work.
As you could imagine, Django’s playing style was different from conventional players. Open cords took a backseat to fretted cord grips. By abandoning open chords, Django stopped chords from ringing between beats, creating a clean, rhythmic sound.
Also, Django’s gypsy jazz style lacked drums, so it was important for the rhythm guitar to drive the beat. Django accomplished this by alternating between picking the bottom strings and strumming the entire chord on every other beat. When he put it all together, this is the sound Django achieved — the sound Willie still aspires to achieve.
To call Willie’s formula for matching his hero’s sound unorthodox would be an understatement. Start with Trigger, his long-suffering guitar. This legendary instrument began life as an unusual, nylon-stringed Martin N-20 classical guitar. A classical guitar with nylon strings? Yup — only about 227 of this Martin were ever built. Now add in the hole that Willie’s flatpicks have carved into the soundboard. Finally, play that guitar through an old Baldwin amp. Willie swears that this setup comes the closest to Django’s sound.
Just like Django, Willie has established a truly unique playing style. He is a ferocious strummer, sweeping the strings in wide arcs. He bends the strings mercilessly, yet claims that he can’t remember the last time he broke a string during a performance. Willie also uses his thumb to fret notes while playing chords. “Yeah, a lot of times,” Willie admitted. “I do that especially in open-chord rhythms. For instance, on a first position D chord I’ll use the thumb on the low E string to play an F#.”
The result is a sound that is easily identifiable as “Willie Nelson.”
So now that you know the stories behind these two great musicians, let’s hear them head-to-head, playing the same song. The song is “Nuages,” a jazz number penned by Django in the early 1940s and the German occupation of France. The song would become the unofficial anthem for the French people, a song of hope for liberation. In tribute to his lifelong inspiration, Willie has adopted “Nuages” as one of his own, playing it at almost every concert he performs.
First, we’ll hear from Django.
And now it’s Willie’s turn.
Has Willie done it? Has he achieved his dream of equalling the sound of the great Django Reinhardt? To hear Willie tell it, he’s made it at least halfway. “I once heard one of the Little Willies — Norah Jones’s band — said I played ‘like Django with one finger,'” he smiles. “That’s about the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my playing – just to think for a minute that I might be half as good as Django. That makes my head a little bigger, thank you very much.”
Happy birthday, Willie. Even if you never feel like you accomplished your goal, we are forever in your debt for trying.