Willie Nelson’s 1985 duets album Half Nelson reads like a roll call of legends: Ray Charles, Neil Young, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Carlos Santana, Leon Russell. In the middle of all those men stands one woman, Lacy J. Dalton.
She got there without ever asking Willie for the favor. Two friends and Willie’s own sister made it happen for her.
A Song Waiting for the Right Voice
The song was “Slow Movin’ Outlaw,” written by Texas songwriter Dee Moeller. It’s a quiet, aching look at an old outlaw who watches the world he knew disappear. The train stations are coming down, the whiskey doesn’t taste the same, and the wide open country is filling up. The question at the heart of it is where a man like that is supposed to go now.
According to Lacy, Dee had written the song for Willie years earlier. The timing was wrong, though. Willie had just finished an album, so the song didn’t get recorded by him then. Waylon Jennings cut his own version in the mid-1970s, but a Willie Nelson recording never happened.
The Friend Called Indian Tom
Lacy had a close friend in Texas she knew as Indian Tom. She has described him as a highly educated man who spent years running the drug program for the state of Texas and negotiating big contracts for the state. He also happened to be good friends with Dee Moeller and with Willie’s sister.
One day Tom told Lacy he had a song for her, and he was firm about it: she needed to do it with Willie Nelson.
Why Lacy Wouldn’t Ask
On paper, it shouldn’t have been hard. Lacy had played shows with Willie and toured with him. But sharing a bill is not the same as being close friends. As Lacy tells it, she and Willie were not intimate buddies, and she didn’t feel comfortable asking him to record a song with her.
Plenty of artists would have pushed anyway. Lacy didn’t. So Tom took matters into his own hands and told her not to worry about it.
Willie’s Sister Steps In
Instead of going to Willie, Tom took the song to Willie’s sister. She loved it. Then she brought it to her brother herself, with a recommendation: he should do it as a duet with Lacy J. Dalton.
The timing this time was perfect. Willie was in the middle of making a whole album of duets with friends and heroes. “Slow Movin’ Outlaw” went onto it, and the song that had missed Willie years before finally found him.
On her own website, Lacy thanks a good friend named Thom Metcalf for the idea, for picking the song and for using his connections to get it in front of Willie.
The Only Woman in the Room
When Half Nelson came out in 1985, “Slow Movin’ Outlaw” sat right near the top of the album, the second track after Willie’s “Pancho and Lefty” with Merle Haggard. Lacy was the only female voice on the record.
She has called that a high point of her career, and an important moment for women in country music. She received a gold record for her part years ago, and later a platinum record.
When she talks about it today, she doesn’t take credit for the duet. She gives it to Tom and to Dee Moeller, calling them magical people who made a magickal thing happen.
Sometimes the biggest break in a career comes from the favor you couldn’t bring yourself to ask for, and the friend who asked for you.
Have you heard Lacy and Willie sing “Slow Movin’ Outlaw”? Tell us what that song means to you.