Willie Nelson, 93, has a superb response to the time he tried a 10-day juice cleanse

At 93, Willie Nelson has spent a long time as an outlaw nation music icon, identified for his love of marijuana and his anti-establishmentarian views. So it might shock you – and it stunned me – to be taught that Willie as soon as tried to stay a “healthy” life-style, making an attempt a 10-day juice cleanse and working two miles a day. Of course in basic Willie style, the working was in cowboy boots, and the juice cleanse was described merely as “horrible”.

“In the early Eighties, [Merle Haggard] came to stay with me in Texas to record. We were living pretty hard back then, but we’d also try to be a little healthy. We used to go jogging a lot. We’d burn one down and run two miles in cowboy boots,” Willie shared with Rolling Stone in 2016.

“In Texas, we went on a 10-day cayenne-pepper juice cleanse. It was horrible. One day after we’d been up all night, Merle went to the condo to get some rest. Around 4 a.m., we woke him up to sing his part on “Pancho and Lefty.”  He sang it half in his sleep, but Hag sings pretty good in his sleep.”

Willie, nevertheless, has stored himself wholesome along with his love of the martial arts; he holds a fifth diploma black belt within the Korean martial artwork of Gongkwon Yusul, plus a second-degree black belt in taekwondo.

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Willie and Merle have been buddies for over 5 a long time after they met within the early Sixties in Nashville, when Merle was invited to a poker sport at Willie’s home by a mutual pal. As nicely as getting married younger and each hopping trains as younger males, they bonded over their love of music, and launched a number of tasks collectively through the years, together with 1983’s Pancho and Lefty, Seashores of Old Mexico in 1987, Last of the Breed additionally in 1987, and Django and Jimmie in 2015, a yr earlier than Merle’s dying.

Now, 10 years from Merle’s passing, Willie will launch his 78th profession solo studio album, a tribute album to Merle’s work. Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle will drop on November 7, and options 11 nation classics penned by Merle. 

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Willie himself has been performing for 63 years, after releasing his debut album in 1962.  In 1972, the singer determined to “retire” from recording music after a string of his albums didn’t make a business influence. He purchased out his contract and moved to Austin, the place he found a renewed perspective and returned to the studio. 

His 1973 report Shotgun Willie acquired important acclaim and have become one of many pioneers of the “outlaw country” motion. Two years later, his 1975 LP Red Headed Stranger grew to become his first crossover hit, solidifying his place within the mainstream and is now thought of his masterpiece. 

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Decades later, Willie continues to be performing, and he shared in 2025 that there was just one means he would retire, if he misplaced his beloved guitar Trigger.

Trigger is a Martin N-20 nylon-string classical acoustic guitar, which he bought in 1969, and has turn into synonymous with Willie’s sound, and is now a key a part of his legacy. 

“One of the secrets to my sound is almost beyond explanation,”  he wrote in his ebook The Tao of Willie: A Guide to Happiness in Your Heart. “My battered old Martin guitar, Trigger, has the greatest tone I’ve ever heard from a guitar… If I picked up the finest guitar made this year and tried to play my solos exactly the way you heard them on the radio or even at last night’s show, I’d always be a copy of myself and we’d all end up bored.”