JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Country rock music star Willie Nelson answered a birthday card received from convicts last month by giving a three-hour concert Thursday at the Missouri State Penitentiary.
About 1,700 cheering inmates stood through most of the show as Nelson, sporting a prisoner's bandana around his forehead and a prisoner-made T-shirt saying 'Willie Nelson Day' on the front and 'Nuke the Prisons' on the back, performed under the hot sun in the prison yard.
Nelson decided last month to give the performance when about 1,500 inmates signed a birthday card inviting him to play at the prison.
The popular musician rode into the jail yard in his chartered bus, where he held private meetings with convicts for more than an hour before the show started.
During one meeting, Bryan Hargis, 26, of St. Louis, who is serving a 17-year robbery sentence, gave Nelson his bandana, which many convicts wear as a symbol of non-conformity.
Nelson, rejected by critics earlier in his career as a rebel for his new musical style, wears a bandana regularly. He wore Hargis's bandana during the entire concert and autographed and returned it after the program.
In an interview with United Press International, Nelson said his prison concert would be identical to that for which he regularly receives $50,000 while on tour. He said he accepted the convicts' invitation because 'I couldn't turn it down.'
Weeks before Nelson's arrival, inmates stenciled 400 T-shirts like the one the singer wore in the concert.
Convicts not allowed to attend the concert viewed it through barred windows of cell blocks that faced the prison yard. Among those who remained confined were eight death row inmates.
Following the concert, Nelson became lost in a crowd of inmates seeking his autograph. Among the items he signed was an egg that had been taken from the prison dining room.
The inmates presented Nelson with a plaque, naming him an honorary convict. Nelson said he would like to make all of them honorary ex-convicts and that he would return next year to give another performance.
