Willie Nelson and Brad “Scarface” Jordan may both be world-famous Texas musicians, but you’d think that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. The Abbott-born country artist and the Houston-born rapper don’t sound much alike and are separated by more than three decades in age. This spring, however, both men are publishing memoirs, and Nelson’s It’s a Long Story: My Life (Little, Brown, May 5) and Jordan’s Diary of a Madman: The Geto Boys, Life, Death, and the Roots of Southern Rap (Dey Street Books, April 21) demonstrate that they have more in common than you’d expect.
Ancestry
Willie Nelson: “Mother was Myrtle, three-quarters Cherokee Indian, who’d traveled down from dirt-poor Arkansas.”
Brad Jordan: “When the slaves were released, the Jordans went to Arkansas. My grandfather on my father’s side was a Chickasaw.”
Life and Death
Willie Nelson: “I was fascinated by the very fact of being alive.”
Brad Jordan: “I’ve always been infatuated with death.”
A.K.A.
Willie Nelson: The Red Headed Stranger, Booger Red, and Shotgun Willie
Brad Jordan: DJ Akshen, Face, and BrotherMob. And, well, Scarface.
Strokes and Tokes
Willie Nelson: “This was where I got my first taste of golf, a sport that, like smoking pot, was a habit that I enjoyed cultivating.”
Brad Jordan: “Now if I’m not playing music, then I’m playing golf.” “I was always high.”
Number of F-Bombs Dropped In the First Ten Pages
Willie Nelson: Six
Brad Jordan: Sixteen
Hometown Boys
Willie Nelson: “[Abbott] rooted me in the land and in the people—good-hearted and well-meaning people—who anchored me in love.”
Brad Jordan: “[Houston] is full of super-solid mother—ers and there ain’t nothing fake about it.”
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