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This week, Willie Nelson celebrated his 92nd birthday. Last weekend, the latest film he served as executive producer on had its debut. It screened at the Dallas International Film Festival and it was co-directed by his daughter, Amy.
This is an extended interview with her about the film, “King of the Roadies.” It’s about the world’s first roadie, Ben Dorcy III, who long worked with Willie Nelson and other well-known musicians.
The full transcript of this episode of Texas Standard is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Laura Rice [00:00:00] You’ve got it tuned to the Texas Standard, I’m Laura Rice. When I say the word roadie, what do you picture? Maybe a bulky guy in a leather jacket with a sleeve of tattoos, hauling an amp on each shoulder, something like that? Ben Dorsey III didn’t quite fit that picture. Rail thin with long white hair and a scraggly beard, he worked with bands on tour until he was 92. He’s largely recognized as the country’s first roadie, or band boy, and he worked with some of the biggest names in country music, let’s just say Willie Whalen and the Boys. Willie’s daughter, Amy Lee Nelson, just finished a documentary about Dorsey. It’s called Willie Nelson Presents, King of the Roadies, and it’s premiering at the Dallas International Film Festival this weekend. Amy, thank you so much for stopping by the Texas Standard Studios. Thank you for having me here. And congratulations on the film. I know it’s been a long time in the making. Can you tell me about that journey? Well, about 16 years ago,
Amy Lee Nelson [00:01:03] years ago, my cousin Trevor asked me if I would help him with this, make a documentary about Ben Dorsey, because Trevor was sort of the filmmaker of our family. He had worked, when he was 16, he was working on the set of Friday Night Lights, and he was just kind of like a rock star in his own right. And Ben asked him if he would make a movie about him, and so Trevor said a documentary, and it was like… So Trevor asked me if I would help and I said, sure. And so we started following Ben around with a camera and we just realized this person that’s been in our life that we sort of took for granted even was just kind of had this star quality and his life sort of, it just unfolded into like this amazing story that we had no idea like he had done all these things that. We just, most people didn’t know about. And a lot of the guys in the band would be like, oh yeah, he worked with John Wayne. And, you know, he was like, he’s an ice skater. He was like a professional ice skaters and just like all these amazing things that we would have never known if we hadn’t asked. And he was probably about 78 when we started asking the questions.
Laura Rice [00:02:27] Tell me about the voices in your documentary. We actually, you mentioned you started this 16 years ago. We hear from a bunch of people who aren’t with us anymore.
Amy Lee Nelson [00:02:37] That is true. We have some footage from this roast from 1990 where the highwaymen decided to get together and honor Ben for all of his hard work. And so we’ve got Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings and Chris Christofferson and Jesse Coulter and my dad and there are and June Carter Cash and it’s just this kind of amazing thing that that my dad’s lighting director actually filmed. Bud Rock, so Buddy Pruitt. So that’s like a whole other thing. Like there’s just this whole group of people, roadies in particular, but it’s not singular to roadies, that it’s these professions that when people are really good at their jobs, they go unnoticed because when the show runs smoothly, people don’t notice it, but the artists notice. So it’s kind of like just, we realized that Ben was a legend among legends, but nobody else really knew who he was. So it was really, became more apparent to us that we had to tell that story.
Laura Rice [00:03:50] Can you talk about the job that he did? I mean, what did a roadie mean? I can’t visualize him hauling amps, but apparently he hauled amps like no other, right? Oh yeah, he haul’d amps.
Amy Lee Nelson [00:04:01] He hauled guitars. Apparently he would like back in the day in the like in the 50s in Nashville they would have these variety shows and Ben would stand there and just help all the artists. He sort of volunteered his volunteered his time doing anything that they wanted him to do and that’s how he got into it is he just started doing the job and making it happen. By most accounts, or by all accounts, no one has disputed that he was the first man to ever be called a roadie. It’s better than a band boy, I think.
Laura Rice [00:04:36] I thought that was an upgrade.
Amy Lee Nelson [00:04:37] Yeah, I think that while the band boys were the ones who would just do like for the stagehands and then the roadies were the traveling stagehams
Laura Rice [00:04:44] Okay.
Amy Lee Nelson [00:04:45] So I think when when the operations really started touring on the road and that like taking their roadies with them Yeah, or taking taking their band boys with them So I thinking he was maybe the first person to actually be the band boy that got invited for the tour. Yeah but they do Everything according to to Waylon Jennings in the song he wrote about him They did they do everything we couldn’t do because we were busy being stars So like for instance, my dad can’t go to the grocery store Weyland couldn’t go to the grocery store without getting pummeled by a bunch of people. And so they have to send someone in to do that kind of thing. But then also they need someone who has the know-how to be able to set things up and set up the spotlight and set up all of the equipment. And every day, day in and day out. I used to go on tour with my dad and we would arrive at the shows a couple hours before showtime. All of the stage crew, all the production crew, they were there since, they’d been there since eight in the morning and they were gonna be there till three in the morning studying, you know, or midnight at least, like breaking everything down. So their jobs are just so incredibly difficult. And I do it day in and day out with very few breaks. So it’s a really, a very difficult job to do.
Laura Rice [00:06:06] You mentioned the song by Waylon Jennings and it’s in this film and it struck me. It sounds like a Waylon-Jennings song. There’s a clip of it on the Ben Dorsey Facebook page.
Speaker 3 [00:06:18] Big Ben came in pumpin’ back in 1963 In New Denver Pile and Willie Big John, the Duke and me We played every city
Laura Rice [00:06:29] Could you tell me a little bit about discovering that song and about bringing music to life for this film?
Amy Lee Nelson [00:06:37] Waylon made a cassette for Ben with this song that he wrote for him back in the, I guess, maybe in the early 80s. And it was just this beautiful tribute to Ben and Rhodey’s in general. So for the film, we thought, well, so it was basically just for Waylon and the guitar. So we decided to add some instrumentation. So Shooter Jennings, Waylon Sun, and Micah, my brother. Co-produced this track and they added Eugene Edwards, the guy that plays with Dwight Yoakam, a really talented guitar player. And they kind of just made this amazing masterpiece out of just this demo that Waylon had made. So we haven’t released that yet, but that’s gonna be in the film and eventually on a companion piece album that we’re gonna put out.
Laura Rice [00:07:31] That’s so cool. You know, another thing that struck me about Ben in this film, you have so much footage with him and in a lot of it, he’s like giving directions. He’s like talking about where to turn or how to get there. Is that sort of demonstrative of his life on the road and knowing how to how to get places, especially around Texas? I mean, just sort of that’s what you do on tour.
Amy Lee Nelson [00:07:57] I think so. Maybe so. He shows that he knows where to go and he’ll tell you all the directions all at once. But yeah, that was part of his job is knowing where he was and knowing where dad’s guitar was and how to make the show go smoothly.
Laura Rice [00:08:18] For such a behind the scenes guy, do you think he got a kick out of being the center of attention for this film? Oh, definitely.
Amy Lee Nelson [00:08:27] Yeah, I think he did. I think just the fact that, well, and he looked a lot like my dad. So a lot of times he would be walking out on the stage before the show would start and people would think that he was my dad and the whole crowd would go wild. And he would kind of just linger on the state a little longer and soak up the applause. I think really, I did think he enjoyed the attention and he also had this star quality that was kind of amazing that we didn’t expect to come out of him. I think he could have been an actor in, I think if he could’ve chosen another profession, he coulda done really well doing that sort of spotlight stuff.
Laura Rice [00:09:05] Well, you know, I’m glad you brought that up because I don’t want to spoil anything in the film, but there’s this moment where we learn Ben’s life could have been very different from what it became. Do you think he had any regrets?
Amy Lee Nelson [00:09:19] That’s a good question. I don’t think he thought in those terms. I really think he was so, he was someone to kind of maybe look up to in that regard even, because he was just like get, his main quote was get your stuff together, but he didn’t say stuff. He was just always about getting the job done, and he was goal oriented that I really, I don’t think he had space in his brain For a regret. If he did, he didn’t voice it ever.
Laura Rice [00:09:53] Do you think his legacy is still alive? Do you still think people tell stories about Ben on tour busses?
Amy Lee Nelson [00:10:00] Definitely, there’s so many people that are saying, oh, you should have interviewed me, I got stories. So like, yeah, there are all kinds of stories about him because like he was working for like 70 years in the music industry. So there’s many people that have been stories there wouldn’t have been a way to keep it under an hour and a half. So like yeah, and I think that it is our job to keep his legacy alive. And not just him, but just putting a spotlight on the people who transport the spotlight that are usually behind the spotlight and just being able to put a spotlight on all the professions and all of the people that work day in and out tirelessly to keep the show on the road. And it’s really the artists that get the attention from it and the only one that really notices them are the artists.
Laura Rice [00:10:57] About your your dad’s relationship with Ben it seemed very special. I can’t imagine that for somebody who it you know is is such a level of fame that he seemed very vulnerable with Ben too.
Amy Lee Nelson [00:11:08] Definitely. They both opened up around each other. Like Ben would sometimes just be like, he would be, he kind of have like that stage dude look where he wouldn’t smile and he just, he was very, like he would, he was sort of foreboding sometimes and, and he, and stoic. And when he got around dad, he would just light up and laugh and literally light up sometimes, and laugh. And the same with dad. Dad would always. He would play around with him. And I mean, they knew each other when they were really both very young. Like dad was Ray Price’s bass player when he met Ben. So, and Ben was their roadie. So like he was definitely, Ben knew him before he was a star and treated him with respect before the world respected that, you know, before the word was looking at him.
Laura Rice [00:12:03] What else do you want people to know about Ben in this film? I mean, what are you excited for them to?
Amy Lee Nelson [00:12:10] He’s really funny. I think it’s a really enjoyable film to watch, mainly in part because Ben is just such a hoot. He’s so fun to watch and so fun hang out with. And so I want people to get to know him. And also just that he would say things like, we ain’t got time for romance, time to keep the show on the road. I think he was just. He was such a great guy. And his 100th birthday is coming up on May 19th. And so we got together with the National Day calendar to create National Roadie Day. So this May 19 is gonna be the first annual National Roadies Day.
Laura Rice [00:12:56] So awesome. Now there’s been Ben Dorsey Day, but that’s been kind of San Antonio-focused, right? And this is really…
Amy Lee Nelson [00:13:04] Spreading the love even more. Yeah, they started doing Ben Dorsey Day back when they realized that Ben wasn’t able to pay his rent. It’s kind of like home does for here, home Austin does, but it was a bunch of these roadies that got together and decided we need to take care of Ben and figure out what to do with, you know, how to help him, especially when he couldn’t drive anymore and, but he was still going, you now, trying to keep him still on the But also they were trying to pay his bills. So they got together at John T. Floor’s country store and they would do an annual Ben Dorsey Day where they would get a bunch of great artists to come perform and they would raise money for Ben every year. So Ben Dorsey Day there was just really just trying to keep Ben alive. And so now National Roadie Day will be keeping his legend alive and just shining that spotlight on all those people that never get it.
Laura Rice [00:13:59] Amy Lee Nelson is one of the directors of the new film, Willie Nelson Presents, King of the Roadies. It’s premiering this weekend at the Dallas International Film Festival. Amy, thank you so much. Thank you so.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
