“Crazy” has been covered dozens of times over the subsequent six decades. “She went out, and he came in, and they got to be the biggest buddies,” Cochran said. 2 behind Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” as the most-played jukebox song of all time. “I said, ‘He probably does, why don’t you go out there and kick his ass?’”Ĭline spared Nelson a beat down and coaxed him inside where she recorded a song that crossed over from the country to the pop charts and has since become a standard that routinely ranks No. “Patsy asked, ‘Does he think he’s too good to come into my session?’” Cochran said. “I believe I’d had too much to drink,” Nelson recalled.įIVE WILLIE ESSENTIALS: The albums that every fan of Texas music should own.Ĭochran said Nelson refused to get out of the car. He arranged for Cochran and Nelson to visit the recording studio while Cline recorded it. “It was too busy.”Ĭochran pitched “Crazy” to Cline’s producer, Owen Bradley, who thought it was a match for the singer. “I was told there were too many chords,” he told the Chronicle. But even after Faron Young hit with Nelson’s “Hello Walls” and Billy Walker scored with “Funny How Time Slips Away,” Nelson struggled to get “Crazy” recorded. He’d written “Crazy” around the same time as “Night Life” and “Funny How Time Slips Away,” during his days in the Houston area. Price also hired Nelson to play bass in his Cherokee Cowboys.īut before that, Nelson's biggest song had already climbed the charts. Price would later score a hit with “Night Life,” which Nelson had written a few years earlier about his commute from his home in Pasadena to his gig at the Esquire. “Nobody else in town may think so, but I’ve been showing people all my life. “I remember thinking, ‘The talent’s there,’” Cochran said. Cochran believed in Nelson enough to kick his pay increase over to his new friend with the nasal voice and peculiar phrasing. Price had recently doubled Cochran’s salary to $100 per week. “I said, ‘God almighty, can you make it out to my office tomorrow?’ He said, ‘Yeah … if you can get me back,’” Cochran told me in a 2002 interview.Ĭochran had a job at Price’s publishing company, Pamper Music. Posed portrait of Patsy Cline Photo by GAB Archive/Redferns/Redferns Nelson sang a few songs for Cochran who asked who his publisher was. Nelson and Cochran met at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, the storied Nashville meeting place where songwriters networked, shared songs and filled and refilled their cups. WILLIE NELSON'S 90th BIRTHDAY: How the Texas singer-songwriter transcends time. With Harlan Howard, Cochran had a huge hit in 1961 when Patsy Cline recorded “I Fall To Pieces.” Cochran was on a golden path at the time: Cline also made a hit of his “She’s Got You” in 1961, and Ray Price and Eddy Arnold would both have success with his “Make the World Go Away.” The late songwriter Hank Cochran, a Mississippi native, was one of the first people in Music City to recognize Nelson’s talent.
A predilection for writing lyrics and drinking helped Nelson find his people there.
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