This is an extended excerpt from my fan made The Ghost Of Tom Joad documentary. Youtube has been meticulously blocking a lot of footage, but I found a way around it so everyone can see it for free on my channel. The Ghost Of Tom Joad is often overlooked in his discography and I think it's easily a topic worthy of a short documentary. For anyone interested, its coming very soon. I hope you enjoy it.
A few months ago I uploaded the first two minutes of the documentary here. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, but it was impossible to be widely shared in its entirety. Now, after battling YouTube's copyright laws, I ended up with a cut that is free for everyone to see.
Parts of it are censored, but otherwise the video would be completely blocked. I make no money of this fan project, but it's been a lot of hard work that I hope you will enjoy. Here's the first two minutes reuploaded.
Not in a “one is better” way—just how different the presence is.
I tried to explore that using only footage, no narration.
I’ve been working on this for a while and finally finished it. It’s a short piece focused specifically on Willie around 1975–76, right as everything starts to scale up around him.
It’s not a typical rise-to-fame doc. I tried to build it around a simple idea:
Willie doesn’t really change — whether he’s playing to a big crowd, a small bar, or being framed by the media. The world around him shifts, people try to define what he is, but his presence stays the same.
There’s a lot of contrast between:
It’s more observational than explanatory.
I made it as a fan, for people who already understand why someone like Willie Nelson is different.
Would genuinely like to hear what you think.