By 1972 Nelson had quit Nashville and moved to Austin, where he noticed that young rock fans were turned on by honky-tonk and folk. (His way had been prepared, in part, by friend and colleague Johnny Cash's eclectic 1970s TV show, showcasing the Man in Black, who had been performing at folk-music festivals for years, with folk-revival stars from Dylan to the Carter family.) Shrewdly, Nelson resurrected the country-folk-rock style that Nashville had rejected, enhanced by his lengthening hair, cowboy-Indian duds and hippie-crossover ideas. His old Music Row pals thought he'd killed what was left of his career. In fact, he had finally found his audience, post-1960s types who thought rock was too corporate and responded to Guthrie-esque storytelling minus the whiny self-indulgence of James Taylor, Carly Simon and Carole King--the same crowd Emmylou Harris would wow and Bruce Springsteen would tap with Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad.

After an abortive stab at his own indie label, Nelson recorded with Atlantic, by then a major label that had mostly jettisoned r&b and jazz for the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. With soul-music producer Arif Mardin and his own band (including pianist Leon Russell), Nelson cut killers like "Shotgun Willie," which crossed funky soul back into country and rock, laced with the introspective touches and wry phrase-turnings that Nashville had scorned. In 1974, "Bloody Mary Morning," a Texas-swing smoothie with characteristic witty lines ("It's a bloody Mary morning baby left me without warning sometime in the night"), hit No. 14 on the country charts. At 41, Willie Nelson was finally hitting his stride.

One of my Austin-based colleagues comments with bemused affection, "Willie is the Buddha. He's also a duet whore." In terms of consistent quality, he's right, but Nelson's duets, which have included outings with Charles, Cash and Dylan as well as U2 and Julio Iglesias, if nothing else do reveal Nelson's prismatic musical curiosity. Two classics ("Good Hearted Woman" and "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys") boast Waylon Jennings, that other Outlaw who, with Nelson, launched the 1970s back-to-the-roots country movement, its revisionist rock, rockabilly and folk ingredients contrasting sharply with contemporary countrypolitan productions. Merle Haggard, another perpetual Nashville outsider, shows up for Townes Van Zandt's evocative border ballad "Pancho and Lefty," where Nelson's nuance nicely plays off Haggard's swagger while making clear that Haggard, whose band, the Strangers, routinely improvises, is among the few country singers whose jazzy phrasing--the dancing rhythms that infiltrated the best American singing after Louis Armstrong--compares to Nelson's.

Red Headed Stranger (Columbia) in 1975 marked a pinnacle, Nelson's John Wesley Harding, an artistic restatement of purpose in the guise of an Americana concept album about an Old West preacher who loved women; its brilliantly sparse, country-folk production features his voice and trademark nylon-stringed guitar. "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" shot to the top of the charts to make him a star. RCA, tailgating his success, compiled an album of Nelson, Jennings and others called Wanted! The Outlaws (RCA), the first country album to go platinum, thanks to "Good Hearted Woman." A movement begun as a rejection of the Nashville music business became the business's newest stack of chips in the hit-making casino.

Nelson hit No. 1 again with Lefty Frizzell's sardonic "If You've Got the Money (I've Got the Time)" then cut a fine album of Frizzell tunes. When Bing Crosby died, to his label's dismay Nelson abandoned what corporate types saw as a winning formula and zagged into the unsure turf of jazz-pop standards; he scored again: 1978's Stardust (Columbia), arranged and produced by the MGs' Booker T. Jones, triumphed with slow tempos and strings, as if Nelson had internalized Nashville and subtly refocused it. His jaunty phrasing genially enlivened classics like "Georgia on my Mind," "Someone to Watch Over Me" and the title track. The album hung on the country charts for almost a decade.

Nelson never played it safe, as in career-building, and so success, like failure, didn't stop his eclectic wanderings: a jam-based feel (Willie and Family Live, Columbia); covers of another renegade songwriter (Sings Kris Kristofferson, Columbia); pallid reprises of Stardust (Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Always on My Mind, both Columbia); reunions with Price (San Antonio Rose, Columbia) and Russell (One for the Road, Columbia). By 1985, however, old-timers like Nelson had begun to be swept away by New Country, the latest Nashville formula, brewed from reheated George Jones and Buck Owens. That year, Nelson founded Farm Aid, which lured performers like Dylan. Nelson also joined forces with Cash, Jennings and Kristofferson in The Highwaymen, a band of Nashville misfits who revivified the roots of country music and expanded the genre's possibilities--and in the process extended its reach to the post-Eagles rock audience, eventually helping to make country music pop's bestselling style with the widest radio play. In 1990 the IRS whacked Nelson for nearly $17 million in back taxes and seized practically all he owned. Who'll Buy My Memories (Columbia), a twenty-five-cut compilation of Nelson-only demos, outtakes and keepers, was issued in 1992 to help pay off the debt; it remains one of Nelson's most effective and affecting albums. The following year, he was solvent.

A collapsed lung, a pot bust, induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, an ersatz acting career (The Electric Horseman, Thief, Wag the Dog, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me)--Nelson is now legend enough to have songs written about him. Like Charles and Dylan, he's grown so powerful and centered in his artistry that even his lesser efforts outgun the best of others.

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