Willie's 90th birthday bash covers a century of American music, whose course he changed by moving back to Texas

Willie Nelson greeted Keith Richards at the Hollywood Bowl Sunday.
(Photo by Randall Michelson of EB Media, via Los Angeles Times)

"It’s not much of an exaggeration — and yet it defies logic — to say that you could trace the history of American music’s last 100 years during the two nights of “Willie Nelson 90: Long Story Short” at the Hollywood Bowl over the weekend. Jazz, country, gospel, blues, rock, Nashville pop, Americana, even hip-hop (well, he smokes with Snoop) are all seamlessly part of Nelson’s DNA, and all were represented over the dozens of tributes paid to him as he turned 90," Mikael Wood and Erin Osmon report for the Los Angeles Times.

More than 45 artists took the stage to honor Nelson; Osmon and Wood chose 10 outstanding moments, including Roseanne Cash and 86-year-old Kris Kristofferson, who sang “Lovin’ Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again).” Sturgill Simpson "said the only reason he went to Nashville to make country records was 'because I grew up listening to country records by Willie Nelson' — records, he added, that exist 'outside of the box of what most people think country records can be.'" Other standoiuts: Beck, Chris Stapleton, George Strait, Allison Russell and Norah Jones, Lukas Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Daniel Lanois, Sheryl Crow and Keith Richards, who joined Willie for "a beautifully crusty version of Waylon Jennings’ 'We Had It All,' which sounded about a million years old, and Billy Joe Shaver’s very aptly titled 'Live Forever.'"

In advance of the concert, Michael Granberry of the Dallas Morning News did an overview of Nelson's career, which began in rural Texas, went to Nashville for songwriting, and returned to his home state: "Willie did more than change the course of American music with his risk-taking move from Nashville to Austin. Nearly half a century after the release of "Red Headed Stranger," his legacy extends to performances in the White House. To his fans and friends, Willie is a timeless icon. He shows not a shred of shame as the country’s most alluring pot smoker. And he somehow manages to rise above political and cultural divides, appealing to young and old, rich and poor, even to the most outspoken on the left and right." Joe Nick Patoski, who wrote the 2008 biography Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, told Granberry that Nelson is “the single most important Texan of the 20th and the 21st century, because he not only reflects — he defines Texas culture. No single person epitomizes the qualities that make Texans different from other people and separates Texas from the rest of the world, not just the United States.”