On This Day in 2022, the Country Music World Lost a Masterful Pianist and an Outlaw Icon Lost His Big Sister and Longtime Bandmate

On this day (March 10) in 2022, Bobbie Lee Nelson died in Austin, Texas, at the age of 91. She was Willie Nelson’s older sister and played piano in his band, The Family, for nearly five decades. She also released a solo album and was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame.

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Nelson learned to play piano on a pump organ from her grandmother when she was just five years old. Soon, she learned to read music and dove headfirst into expanding her musical ability. When she was 16 years old, she married Bud Fletcher, who later formed a band called The Texans. According to NPR, the band featured Willie and Bobbie Nelson and their father, who played rhythm guitar. This allowed her to get into bars to perform.

[RELATED: On This Day in 1976, Willie Nelson Hit No. 1 With a Gospel Album His Label Refused To Release]

The band dissolved in 1955, and their marriage followed soon after. Over the next decade, Nelson weathered several personal struggles, including the death of her ex-husband. Finally, in 1965, she traveled to Nashville to visit her younger brother, whose songwriting career was just getting started. While there, she played piano in venues around town.

Bobbie Nelson Joins The Family

Nearly a decade later, in 1973, Willie Nelson called Bobbie and invited her to New York to record with him. “Willie had signed to Atlantic Records, and he was going to do a gospel record and wanted me to help him,” she told The Austin Chronicle. “I had never been on an airplane or even been any farther than Nashville, but I went to New York. We recorded The Troublemaker the first time I recorded with him. Then, we did the Shotgun Willie album while we were there, and it all went so well, and we had such a good time that Willie said, ‘I sure have missed playing with you. Let’s just don’t stop.’”

With that, she became the first member of Nelson’s band, The Family. She went on to back her younger brother on the road and in the studio for decades. Their final show together was in October 2021.

Bobbie Nelson released her solo album, Audiobiography, in 2008. In 2017, she and Willie co-wrote Me and Sister Bobbie: True Tales of the Family Band with David Ritz.

“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,” Willie wrote about her in his 2015 autobiography.

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