LAWD have mercy…
It’s pretty damn incredible how much talent abounds in the Nelson family.
Though they actually just kicked off the Outlaw Music Festival Tour together, they’ve been playing songs as a group for years, and just released the Willie Nelson Family album in 2021.
And a few years back, Willie and his sons, Lukas and Micah, did a little series called Willie Nelson and the Boys, where they played acoustic versions of some of Willie’s classics, like the one we’re talking about today, “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain.”
A country standard by all accounts, it was actually the first song Willie taught Lukas how to play on the guitar, and Lukas remembers learning it for Willie for his birthday one year:
“The first song that you taught me dad, when I was a kid, was ‘Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain.’ That was the first chord I ever learned, was E.
I remember asking you what you wanted for your birthday, I was like 10 or 11, and ‘your’e like, ‘you know what would make me happy is if you learned to play guitar.’
And I took that to heart, and you taught me that night ‘Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain.’”
“Blue Eyes” was originally written by Fred Rose and performed by Roy Acuff. It has been covered by countless other country artists, like Hank Williams Sr. and Charley Pride, but was made most famous by Willie when he included it on his iconic 1975 Red Headed Stranger album.
In October of 1975, it became Willie’s very first #1 hit as a singer on the Billboard U.S. Hot Country Songs chart.
I mean, just listen to those sweet, sweet harmonies between these three very talented musicians… it doesn’t get any better than this: