To celebrate Willie Nelson's 88th birthday, Texas Monthly interviewed Sheryl Crow on their One by Willie podcast. Among the Nelson stories she relates is one about the day he offered her father a hit on a joint.
When Crow was featured on a CMT's Crossroads live-music series with Nelson in 2002, she flew her father Wendell Crow and several of his friends to Los Angeles for the occasion.
"My mom and dad were amateur musicians," Crow explains on the podcast. "They played in a swing band. They had all the great records. Cut to I'm doing Crossroads with Willie. I flew my dad and his buddies out - his band, right? They were cool cats. But my dad - his day job was being a lawyer, a very Atticus Finch lawyer. Anway, they get to meet their hero Willie and Willie proceeds to offer them some weed. I was standing next to my dad and I was like, 'How was that going to go down?'
"It's going to be one of three ways," Crow countd down about her conservative, trumpet-playing dad. "He was either going to smoke, which I knew he wouldn't, he was going to throw Willie down on the ground and put him in a citizen's arrest or he was just going to be cordial, be a cool cat, and say, 'Nah, I'll pass.' He chose option three, which I was very relieved about.
"We still tell that story around the dinner table: The time Willie Nelson offered my dad some weed."
However, we don't learn in the interview if Crow ever smoked weed with Nelson. Apparently not. "He's an important person in the scope of my journey," she concludes.
Crow performed "You Remain" with Nelson on the Crossroads show. Watch it below.
