Willie Nelson’s Daughter Lana on Lullabies, Landlords, and Townes Van Zandt

For as long as Lana Nelson can remember, “Red Headed Stranger” was one of her favorite songs. When she was a little girl in the late fifties, and her dad a radio DJ, she’d call the stations where he worked to request its original 1954 recording by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith and his Cracker-Jacks—provided, that is, it happened to be a period in which the family could afford a phone. Then, when her dad got home each night, she’d beg him to play her to sleep with it on his guitar. And then, of course, some twenty years later, it became a song the whole world wanted to hear Willie Nelson to sing, when he grew it into a concept album that changed American music…

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