Soon after he acquired his new guitar, Willie’s house caught on fire. Trigger was one of the only items he managed to rescue from the house and led him to want a significant change in scenery. He moved out to Texas to play the honky-tonk country scene in places like Austin and Fort Worth, and his career began to grow and thrive. With Trigger at his side and an iconic acoustic sound, Willie became the celebrated music legend we know today. We might not have the Willie Nelson music we love today if that drunk man hadn’t stepped on his old Baldwin guitar in 1969.
Willie Nelson’s guitar Trigger means so much to him that he even went to great lengths to hide it from the IRS while he was working on settling his millions of dollars in tax debt in the early nineties. He had his daughter grab the guitar from his recording studio and bring it to him at his home in Hawaii. It stayed hidden there until he paid off the last of his debt.
After decades at the Red Headed Stranger’s side, the guitar looks beat up, covered in autographs carved into its wood, lovingly showing it’s age and the memories it shares from Willie’s memorable life and career. Willie told Rolling Stone, “We’re both pretty old, got a few scars here and there, but we still manage to make a sound every now and then.”
