Willie Nelson publishes memoir The Last Leaf at 93

Willie Nelson has published a memoir, The Last Leaf, at the age of 93, and is candid about the ledger of his life. "I drank too much, I smoked too much. I took too many pills," he tells the Guardian's Simon Hattenstone. He is one of the last living figures from country music's golden era, still touring, and when asked what he learned about himself writing the book, he answers: nothing.

Nelson has released over 150 albums and wrote "On the Road Again" on an airplane sick bag. When the IRS demanded 32 million dollars in unpaid taxes, he recorded a double album, The IRS Tapes, and paid the bill off with record sales — the federal government, as a creditor, turned out to be easier to satisfy than Nashville ever was as an employer. He formed The Highwaymen with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, co-founded Farm Aid with Neil Young and John Mellencamp, and has taken reported tens of thousands of dollars off Woody Harrelson at poker.

The through-line of his career is that he never let the industry decide who he was. He left Nashville in the early 1970s after the labels tried to sand down his songs into conventionally produced product, and went home to Texas, where he and Jennings built what became known as Outlaw country — recorded on their own terms, with their own bands, on their own schedules. The label eventually came to him. It usually does, when the alternative is losing the act entirely.

Now he lives between Spicewood, Texas, and Maui, Hawaii, refuses to use Zoom, and runs his cannabis brand, Willie's Reserve. His publicist negotiated the interview down to fifteen minutes and predicted it would be one of the interviewer's life highlights. Nelson's stated formula for longevity: imagine what you want, then get out of the way — and make sure what you are asking for is what you actually want.

He is 93, and his current focus, per his publicist, is gigging and the cannabis business.