Country artist Lucinda Williams once said, “Willie Nile is a great artist. If there was any justice in this world, I'd be opening up for him instead of him for me.”
Nile, who is a favorite among many songwriters, has yet to garner the kind of mainstream commercial recognition as his contemporaries Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, both of whom he is likened to.
Nile's most recent release, “Streets of New York,” has earned him acclaim from the likes of Lou Reed, Bono, Graham Parker, Jesse Malin and Adam Duritz.
Nile was born in 1949 in Buffalo, N.Y., where he grew up in a musical household thanks to his Irish-Catholic family members.
“My brothers would bring home rock 'n' roll records like the Beatles, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Stones, Dylan and in my home there was a lot of classical music so I was really blessed with a lot of music around,” he said.
His parents observed a policy in which houseguests from all over the world came to stay with the family for extended periods, which had a profound effect on Nile.
Growing up on the East Coast, Nile developed a penchant for the ocean from family vacations (a tradition maintained through the generations beginning with Nile's grandfather) to the coast of New Hampshire.
