Willie Nelson’s older sister, Bobbie Lee Nelson was an American pianist and singer who was a member of his band, Willie Nelson and Family. She was born on January 1, 931 in Abbott, Texas, U.S and died on March 10, 2022, at the age of 91 years
She married Bud Fletcher, who had founded his own band, The Texans when she was sixteen years old. She played the piano, and her brother sang and played the guitar.
She played the piano with Willie Nelson during his Atlantic Records sessions, which produced The Troublemaker, Shotgun Willie, and Phases & Stages. In the same year, she became a full-time member of The Family and began travelling with her brother.
When she was six years old, her grandfather purchased her a $35 piano and took her to singing competitions. She began travelling with evangelists across Austin and throughout Texas when she was 14 years old.
Meet Ira Doyle Nelson
Ira Doyle Nelson Jr., who was named after the Nelson patriarch, known as ‘Doyle,’ died on April 15th, 2015, at the age of 77, of natural causes. Willie Nelson, the entertainer, was his younger brother.
Doyle worked in a variety of transportation-related professions throughout his life, including driving tour buses for Jon Bon Jovi, Van Halen, John Fogerty, and Doyle’s brother Willie. He spent numerous years assisting the television and film industries with transportation needs.
Myrle Marie Nelson
Bobbie Lee Nelson’s mother, Myrle Marie Nelson, is an incredible woman. She was born on May 3, 1913, in Pindali, Searcy, Arkansas, and died at the age of 70 on December 11, 1983. In Arkansas, Myrle was born into a musical family.
Her father, William Alex Greenhaw, was a master banjo player (and moonshiner), her brother Carl, a pianist, and her sister, Myrle, a skilled guitarist, and they were all singers.
In Newton County, Arkansas, Myrle married Ira Nelson on September 6, 1929. Myrle and Ira separated in 1935, and she wandered around Oklahoma, San Francisco, Oregon, and Washington, working as a waitress, dancer, and card dealer.
Myrle married Claude Sharpenstein, then Ken Harvey, and they resided in Eugene, Oregon, until they moved to Eastern Washington State, where she spent the last nine years of her life. Lung cancer was the cause of her death.
