Outlaw, folk hero, country icon--Willie Nelson's legacy has been viewed through the prism of all three labels. But the man himself is a rough fit in any neat category, and that's been a major part of his appeal over the years. With Willie Nelson, you're really getting an individual who approaches his work with inspiration from a wide variety of musical traditions, including country, folk, rock, the blues and even jazz.

Nelson was born in 1993 in Ft. Worth, TX. He grew up in Abbott, passing into the care of his grandparents after his father died and his mother ran off. They pushed both Nelson and his sister Bobbie toward music, encouraging him to pick up the guitar. As a young man, his life was filled with wandering, with a distant hope for a musical career growing ever more fervent. He would play bars and had a few minor radio successes along the way that would work up his confidence and encourage him to try his luck in Nashville in 1961.

Over the next decade or so, Nelson would develop a small but fervent cult following, charting a few songs along the way but never breaking on to the national scene. He never really fit in with the traditional Nashville sound, however, and after several years of frustration, he gave up and became a pig farmer in Austin.

Once there, he began to notice that rock and folk fans seemed to run in the same audiences. It was blending in rock with his country influences that made Willie Nelson a star, earning him fame throughout the '70s and '80s, eventually earning a reputation as being a bona fide statesman of country.