On this day (November 6) in 1932, Paul English was born in Vernon, Texas. Many country music fans remember him as Willie Nelson’s longtime drummer, close friend, and the inspiration behind the song “Me and Paul.” However, he was much more than that. English was the beating heart of Nelson’s operation.
Nelson met English through his brother, Oliver, who was a guitarist who played like jazz legend Django Reinhardt. He became Nelson’s musical mentor in the 1950s, when he was still doing a daily radio show in Fort Worth, Texas. In his memoir, It’s a Long Story, My Life,” Nelson called his longtime friend “a gun-toting, fun-loving outlaw with plenty of charm and no fears.”
When they met, English already had a checkered past. Nelson didn’t mind, though. He still asked him to keep time for him on a cardboard box during his radio performances. A decade later, as his career took off, Nelson invited English to join his band as a full-time drummer. At the time, he was reportedly working as a pimp. However, he chose to take a pay cut and moved to Nashville.
Willie Nelson and Paul English Saved One Another
Much can be said about how Paul English kept Willie Nelson’s operation running. According to Rolling Stone, he was Nelson’s tour manager and handled payroll for his band and touring crew. He also handled sound and lighting for their shows. In the early days, he was Nelson’s enforcer and collected the money they were owed by any means necessary. More importantly, though, they kept one another going.
Nelson struggled when he first arrived in Nashville. He had to scrape and hustle to make ends meet while living in a trailer park. At the same time, he felt like he was the only songwriter in Music City who couldn’t catch a break. Eventually, he decided to kill himself.
One winter evening, Nelson walked out of a Nashville bar, lay down in the snowy street, and waited for a car to hit him. Fortunately, traffic was light. After a while, he decided to go back inside. The next day, English took him out to lunch and gave him some hope for the future. “It was good to be with someone who seemed to believe in me more than I believed in myself,” Nelson wrote in Me and Paul: Untold Stories from a Fabled Friendship. “He really believed in a rosy future when I couldn’t afford to buy my wife a dozen roses.”
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Years later, when English’s first wife, Carlene, died by suicide, he was on a path of self-destruction. Nelson took him to Mexico, where Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson were shooting Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The four legends spent time together as friends and it helped English cope with the loss. “The guys told me every once in a while you’re going to have a good day, and that helped me,” he recalled.
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The post Born 94 Years Ago Today in Texas, the Outlaw Who Became Willie Nelson’s Drummer, Enforcer, and Lifelong Friend appeared first on American Songwriter.