Between April 28th and May 27th of 2023, the UNT CoLAB featured a wonderful ‘Celebrating Willie Nelson’ exhibit featuring the art of Steve Brooks as presented by the UNT Special Collections. Steve Brooks is the famous artist who created Willie Nelson’s graphics and art for his poster designs, t-shirts and more. His work is nostalgic for most and brings a sense of identity to Willie Nelson and his whole familial crew and band. UNT maintains a collection of his memorable work as Steve Brooks was an alumni from UNT long ago and hails from Dallas, TX nowadays.
This article will dive into the exhibit itself and share the great work of Steve Brooks while also interviewing a friend of mine, Kat, about her love of Willie Nelson and what he means to her. I also ask her some questions about Steve Brooks’ work. Let’s get into it!
Free Zines were supplied by the awesome Triangle Nonprofit Publishing all about Steve Brooks! They are a local zine publisher and creator group in the area who deserve your support for what they do. Check out their work and donate to them on the Triangle Nonprofit Publishing website.
Interview Question:
1) When did you first hear Willie Nelson’s music? Paint us a picture of that memory
Obviously I heard his music from my dad growing up. But I didn’t really get it at the time. So it didn’t really mean anything to me, I just liked it. My dad was very tech savvy despite being of the much older generation and was a pro at Lime Wire at the time. He would download Willie songs and pretty much anything else he wanted at his whim and listen to them as he played Grand Theft Auto II on our family computer.
It didn’t hit me until I was MUCH older how much I truly loved him after seeing him on King of the Hill and thinking “My dad really liked that guy.” I started listening to his music. Then I met the love of my life: Kole. Kole was my Pembroke Corgi and we had a wonderful 5 years before lymphoma took him too early. After his passing, nothing in life felt the same, but especially Willie songs, which he and I always enjoyed together. And that’s when I dubbed myself a true Willie fan.
The Abbott Homecoming event on November 4th, 1973, had a lot of artwork from Steve Brooks that went into the production of the event. He went with a stained glass / church oriented approach to it, featuring Willie’s big cowboy hat adorned with a golden halo. Visitors to the event could enjoy singing all day with a dinner too.
Interview Question:
2) What are your top 3 favourite Willie songs overall & what is their significance to your life?
- ‘Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys’ – this one is for pure comedy, I like to change the words to all sorts of funny things to make the song different. “Mammas don’t let your babies grow up to be Kathryns”… also coincidentally I am a huge Waylon fan as well haha.
- Whiskey River – It’s just fun to get down to. That’s pretty much the gist on that!
- You Are Always On My Mind – Always reminds me of Kole. Will never not remind me of him. Cry every time I hear it. This is our song and it’ll be forever in my heart for us.
Interview Question:
3) Where does the significance of Willie’s sneakers & airplanes come from in his music career, shown in some of Steve Brook’s work?
I don’t fully know the history on this so PLEASE don’t hold me to anything I say, but from my understanding, Brooks was attempting to create a new “cleaner look” for country music stars and try to kinda move away from the “bad” outlaw style they were repping in the late 60s and very early 70s. It could be safe to say that the airplane and sneaker imagery could be attempting to capture some kind of more… modern, possibly even… urban? Kind of look.
This is all speculation on my part, I don’t know that much on the history of it.
—
I decided to look into it more extensively after speaking with Kat about it, and was led to this discovery:
Willie Nelson had an extensive running habit back in the 70’s due to his involvement in what was originally a trend to get into running marathons back then or doing any sort of running whatsoever. Many of the hippies back in the day were getting into it in the 70’s, and Willie was one of them.
Specifically, Willie loved New Balance shoes for his running whether it be for competition or leisure. Soon enough Willie ended up wearing the New Balance 496, a walking shoe, supplied by New Balance themselves who embroidered his name on the side of them.
His old pair of 496 New Balance shoes are currently on display and signed in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, TN.
Here is some mention of his fitness oriented lifestyle, courtesy of Still is Still Moving;
“I just try to exercise. I try to do enough in the morning to make up for what I did, detrimentally, the night before. I try to make it even out, but you know, we don’t live the greatest lifestyles out here traveling on the road and eating whatever we can get a hold of. So, any kind of exercise we can do daily is good, and I try to get in a run or a bike ride or something every day.”
“I enjoy running around Austin. I enjoy going downtown and running on the rivers and lakes down there, and you see just loads and loads of people doing it every single day. There’s not a more beautiful place to run and Austin has so many great roads and trails.” – Willie Nelson
You can read all about the lore of the legendary running shoes at the awesome article written on Still Is Still Moving, a Willie Nelson fan site, if you’d like to learn more about his fitness journey.
Interview Question:
4) Have you ever attended a Willie Nelson concert or one of his July 4th picnics or wanted to?
I wanted to attend one of his concerts, and had everything planned to during the… 2020 (possibly 2019, whichever year was the year it got cancelled?) rodeo in Houston, and it was cancelled due to covid.
This Luckenbach concert poster is just phenomenal, with beautiful sketched and inked work showing the venue for the event front and center drawn with superb craftsmanship.
Steve Brooks created vastly different approaches to various Willie Nelson concert posters and advertisements. The hand-drawn approach for the graphics is very beautiful, and very unique. I appreciate his handiwork and look up to his pencil and ink portrait and realism skills in contrast to his cartoony work as seen below.
Interview Question:
5) What’s your favourite 3 pieces from Steve Brooks’ work here for Willie Nelson? & Why?
I’m not ultra familiar with the works enough to have a favorite, I suppose, but one that does stick out to me as me remembering is a particular sketch Brooks did where he just sketched out Willie’s name over and over again in different fonts and as a person that tattooed for a long time, I find that interesting that someone would do that for fun.
Interview Question:
6) What is your favourite Willie art, merch, or poster you’ve seen? Or Willie as seen in other media?
As mentioned before, my favorite art I’ve seen Willie in was Season One Episode Four, Hank’s got the Willies. Bobby Hill accidentally lets a golf club go flying whilst joshing around and it hits Willie in the head. Shenanigans ensue, it’s hilarious and Willie voice himself.
Willie as seen in the King of the Hill episode.
Willie Nelson had an extensively large family that he performed routinely with. They are still performing today, even, and the last event was July 29th 2023 earlier this year.
The family is depicted by Steve Brooks too for posters and advertisements, showing the relatives and their unique charm alongside Willie. Below are some developmental sketches from the archive of this era of touring.
There was even a Valentines day show and event! This poster is charming and has great style and composition.
Below is the ‘On the Road Too Long’ graphic featuring the Willie Nelson & family again, but with Don Bowman this go around. The art is superbly charming with their disgruntled faces.
The 4th of July Picnics became an iconic staple to Texas culture which started exactly 50 years ago on July 4th, 1973. Now, there was recently another 4th of July picnic this year in 2023. It’s been many years of the picnics, part of Texan tradition. Below is some of the great design work Steve Brooks did for such events.
Willie Nelson’s T-shirt designs are part of a massive amount of memorabilia that Steve Brooks designed for the legendary musician. Plenty of people adorn themselves with this popular Willie merch! Most were available at concerts.
Overall, Willie Nelson’s lead artist – Steve Brooks – has made a huge impact on the world of country music using his awesome skills in design and illustration. Willie Nelson’s career would be lacking without an incredible artist such as Brooks to really bring his merch and posters to life.
Fans like my friend Kat come together to love Willie’s music and the graphics that go with that matter so much to fans. Alongside Willie, Steve Brooks is an important part of Texas history that will always be remembered.
Visit the UNT CoLAB to support their establishment and partake in viewing cool cultural, art and creative exhibits today! They are open from 11am – 6pm Mon – Sat weekly at 207 N Elm St, Denton, TX 76201.
Thank you to the UNT CoLAB for hosting this amazing exhibit!
Thank YOU for reading this article!
Have an amazing day & keep it country, Denton!
Ovaettr Art Life 