ट्रिविया

Sister of Willie Nelson.

Pianist.

Sister-in-law of Annie D'Angelo.

After her husband Bud Fletcher died in a car crash she quit playing music and became a secretary for the Hammond Organ Company.

In his 2015 autobiography, It's a Long Story: My Life, Willie Nelson wrote: "Bobbie became accomplished at an early age. I lagged behind - and remain so to this day. Bobbie is a musician in the true sense of being able to play with great facility in any style. She learned to read beautifully and was known far and around Hill County as a genuine piano prodigy.".

Nelson did not release a solo album of her own until 2008, shortly before she turned 77. It was called Audiobiography - and it was the only one she ever released.

She was an American pianist and singer, the older sister of Willie Nelson and a member of his band, Willie Nelson and Family.

In 1961, after suffering a breakdown caused by her husband Bud Fletcher's death and the custody of their children being given to his parents, she moved to Fort Worth, Texas, where she worked for the Hammond Organ Company. After recovering her children, she moved to Austin, Texas.

Her grandmother started instructing her to play piano on a pump organ when Bobbie was five. Her grandfather took her to singing gospel conventions that were held on the courthouse in Hillsboro, Texas, where she performed for the first time-in front of about a thousand people.

Bobbie Nelson went on to tour and record with her brother Willie for decades, appearing on many of his albums, spanning Red Headed Stranger in 1975 to The Willie Nelson Family just last year.

In 2008, she released her solo debut album, Audiobiography.

In 1965 she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, after her third marriage failed. She played in restaurants and different venues until she was called by her brother from New York in 1973 for a session. She joined Willie Nelson on the piano during his sessions with Atlantic Records, that produced The Troublemaker, Shotgun Willie and Phases and Stages. The same year she joined The Family full-time and began touring with her brother.

When she was nine years old she started playing with her brother Willie and singing with her grandmother around the house. She began playing in functions at Abbott High School and in church with her brother. When she was fourteen, she began traveling with evangelists around Austin and throughout Texas.

At age sixteen she married Bud Fletcher, who formed his own band, The Texans. She joined on the piano, while her brother joined on vocals and guitar. The band was disassembled in 1955 after she divorced Fletcher.

Willie always referred to her as "little sister" even though she was the older of the two.

Her mother moved to Portland, Oregon, soon after her brother Willie was born in 1933 (Willie later relocated their mother when he reached adulthood). Her father remarried and also moved away, leaving them to be raised by their paternal grandparents. The Nelsons, who taught singing back in Arkansas, started their grandchildren in music.

She started singing in school acts and in church with her brother.

To retrieve custody of her children, she married again and started working in a television repair shop in town. The owner of the store rented a piano to comfort her as she recovered. She began working for the Hammond organ Company, demonstrating and selling their products. She retrieved the custody of her sons and moved to Austin, Texas.

In 2017, she was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. Two days after induction she was (again) in concert with her brother Willie Nelson at The Greek Theater in Berkeley, California.

In 2020, Willie and Bobbie Nelson co-authored a memoir called Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band. In it, Willie wrote: "I've written a few books before, but there's one that passed me by. Probably passed me by 'cause the heroine is too humble to demand attention. The heroine is my sister, Bobbie. Bobbie's got the best story in our whole family. ... Without my sister, I'd never be where I am today. I've always needed her.".

Bobbie Nelson learned to play the piano by reading four-part shape-note harmonies in hymn books. And she fell in love with boogie-woogie, which she played for her school classmates.

Impressed by her potential talent, her grandfather bought her a piano for $35 when she was six.

When Bobbie was five, her grandmother taught her to play keyboards with a pump organ, and after successful appearances at gospel conventions held in Hillsboro, Texas, her grandfather bought her a piano.

Y age 16, Nelson had fallen in love with and quickly married a man named Bud Fletcher, who recognized the siblings' talent. Despite having no musical skills himself, Fletcher built a band called Bud Fletcher and The Texans featuring the siblings, with the Nelsons' father playing rhythm guitar. And because she was with her family, Bobbie Nelson was able to slip into bars to play - a scandalous situation for a young woman. The marriage began to fall apart, though, and The Texans disbanded in 1955 when Fletcher and Nelson divorced. But because of the shame of Bobbie's work in honky-tonks, initial custody of their three young sons was given to Fletcher's parents - and Nelson couldn't continue to play in bars. In a 2008 feature on All Things Considered, Nelson reflected on this difficult time in her life. "I thought, 'How can I earn enough money to support my children and to show the world that I can support my children? I want my babies,'" she remembered. "And that was the hardest part of my life. And I couldn't play with Willie at that time, because I wasn't supposed to even enter into a club. They would not have agreed to let me have my children back.".