Nelson continues to tour and will kick off a new string of dates next month in Texas Willie Nelson turned 93 on Wednesday, but he’s still not slowing down. Just three days later, on Saturday, May 2, the Red Headed Stranger will headline a concert at the Whitewater Amphitheatre in New Braunfels, Texas. Then he’s off to a string of shows in the southeast before kicking off the 2026 installment of the Outlaw Music Festival Tour on July 3. Nelson will play these gigs despite suffering a string of losses to his road band — the Family Band — over the last few years. Guitarist Jody Payne died in 2008, bassist Bee Spears in 2011, and Nelson’s longtime drummer and foil, Paul English , passed in 2020. And then there was “Sister Bobbie”: Nelson’s piano-playing older sibling Bobbie Nelson left a gaping hole in the Willie ecosystem when she died in 2022. John Spong, host of the One by Willie podcast and a contributor to Texas Monthly , has his theory for how Nelson carries on through the loss.…