Willie Nelson Recalls Playing in a Polka Band in Audiobook Excerpt of New Memoir

Willie Nelson’s latest book, Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band, is a collaboration with his sibling Bobbie Nelson, a 47-year member of Nelson’s always-in-motion touring group. Released September 15th, it finds Willie and Bobbie recalling their musical lives in alternating chapters.

Both Nelsons read the memoir in an accompanying audiobook, also out Tuesday. In an audio excerpt, Willie recalls the first time he ever got paid to play music — performing as an 11-year-old guitarist in a polka band in Texas. The dance hall gigs, mostly in front of Texas’ Czech community, didn’t go over all that well with his grandmother, who objected to dancing and drinking. Until “Mama Nelson” found out how much her grandson was making. “I never did get her approval, but I also didn’t get any flack,” Willie says in the excerpt.

Me and Sister Bobbie, written with biographer David Ritz, is the follow-up to Willie’s other memoir, It’s a Long Story: My Life (his first memoir, Willie: An Autobiography, came out in 1988). Bobbie Nelson is Willie’s older sister; she turned 89 in January. Willie celebrated his 87th birthday in April. In July, Willie released his latest album, First Rose of Spring.

(The audiobook excerpt is courtesy Penguin Random House Audio from Me and Sister Bobbie by Willie Nelson and Bobbie Nelson, read by the authors.)