Willie Nelson comes to auditorium

Willie Nelson is not what you would call a traditional country music star -- he's an outlaw. Since his beginnings as a struggling songwriter in Nashville, Tenn., he has been fighting against the constraints of the country music genre.\nAt 68, Nelson shows no signs of slowing down after a 40-year career and 100 albums. He will perform at the IU Auditorium at 8 p.m. Saturday for the Homecoming concert. Tickets cost from $26 to $46 ($16 to $26 for IU-Bloomington students) and are still available.\nJohn Hobson, senior vice president of the IU Alumni Association, which is a co-sponsor of the event, said "Nelson is a good attraction and offers a broad appeal."\n"Each year we work with the IU Auditorium to make this weekend special," Hobson said. "We feel the Willie Nelson concert will be a perfect ending to our Homecoming weekend. He is a legend."\nNelson started his career in music as a DJ in Fort Worth, Texas. He sold his first song, "Family Bible," for $50 in 1960 and decided to move to Nashville to try his luck. The nasal timbre of his voice and his jazzy vocal styling kept him from being a successful performer at first, but his song writing abilities were eventually noticed.\nThroughout the 1960s he had success as a songwriter. He wrote popular songs like "Crazy," "Hello Walls" and "Funny How The Time Slips Away." Patsy Cline's recording of "Crazy," remains the most requested country song ever.\nDespite his success as a songwriter, he could not get a break as a performer. Discouraged by the lack of interest in his performing and the formulaic approach to country music in Nashville, Nelson packed it up and moved back to Texas to become a pig farmer.\nHe didn't wait to long to re-emerge, and in 1973 he reappeared with a new image, transforming himself into a country outlaw. His new albums had concepts, and his songs reflected his wide range of influences. It would become this image that Nelson would be known by -- the long red hair in pigtails and his classical guitar with a huge hole which he named Trigger. By the time he released the "Red Headed Stranger" album in 1975, Willie Nelson had become a household name.\n"He never has seemed too concerned with image," said assistant music professor Andy Hollinden, who teaches the History of Rock of the 1970s and 1980s. "That is one of the things that I have liked about him. It wasn't about the glamour and looks but the music. He is the genuine article, just like Hank Williams Sr."\nNelson is as active now as ever. He released five albums of new material in 2000 and has released one album, "Rainbow Connection," this year, with at least one more scheduled for release before year's end. \nNelson also still tours for the better part of the year. He played in Noblesville last month at Farm Aid, an event he co-founded. He also closed the "Tribute To Heroes" telethon, leading an achingly beautiful rendition of "God Bless America." That performance inspired Dan Rather to say if America had a collective voice, it would probably sound like Willie Nelson.