Hey, it's Katie Vine, the host of The Problem with Eric. I wanted to let you know about a new season of another Texas Monthly favorite, One by Willie, my friend John Spong's show featuring well-known Willie Nelson fans talking about one Willie song they love. After five seasons at Texas Monthly, the show is back, produced by PRX with a great new lineup. Check it out. If somebody told you you had to pick one musical artist to listen to for the rest of your life, who would you choose?
Oh, cool. What a neat thought. The rest of us would pick Willie Nelson. That's why I started One by Willie, a podcast in which I talk each week to one notable Willie fan about one Willie song that they really love. We've had guests you'd expect, like Casey Musgraves and Lyle Lovett, and others you might not, like Nick Offerman and Brene Brown. And what we've wound up with are uniquely personal looks at the life and art of a genuine American legend.
I mention all this now because starting next week, One by Willie is all the way back.
Beginning on Wednesday, we will be rolling out new episodes, each featuring a singular take on Willie from one illustrious friend, fan, and/or collaborator. Like we've got the reigning queen of country music, Miranda Lambert. I actually sang it this weekend at Whitewater Amphitheater where we were playing, and I did it with Calder Allen and Wade Bowen, and just seeing the crowd and the way that song hits people. Seeing the crowd just sway their arms and sing it so loud.
you know because cowboys have this reputation because they don't stick around long because they earned this reputation exactly but it's the allure of that bad boy that we all want and i feel like this song said it perfectly but then we've also got bluegrass phenom billy strengths that old guitar and man you can on the fretboard you can just see where his fingers have just worn into that thing over the years and years of him playing
And you just think about all that music he's poured into that thing and how he's just helped so many people with his beautiful music, you know, and my whole family, you know. He's like woven into the fabric of American history. ♪
And then there's one of Willie's Farm Aid co-founders, heartland rocker John Mellencamp. I'll say that Willie deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for Farm Aid. Right. It's the longest-running charity of its kind in the world. Yes, there has been a lot of changes, a lot of reinventing what Farm Aid's about, but it all stems from Willie. You know, Neil and I just carry water. We just carry water. Gee, ain't it funny?
All that, plus CNN political correspondent Paul Begala on Willie as practitioner of the lost art of empathy, Black Puma Adrian Quesada on the mysteries of Willie's 1998 masterpiece Teatro, New Yorker music critic Amanda Petrusich on the long friendship between Willie and Merle Haggard, and a whole bunch more. I'm your host, John Spong. Y'all come check us out.