Willie Nelson says he was once too high to do a concert.
“I don’t remember the town but I do remember that I wasn’t able to do a show,” the 87-year-old country icon told guest host George Lopez on Wednesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. “I walked out there and said ‘Sorry’ and went back to the bus.
“I came back about a month later and said ‘I think I remember being here before.’”
Nelson said he has been smoking something – grapevines, cedar bark, cigarettes and marijuana – since he was a child. “And then I got to where I realized that my lungs were caving in so I had to quit something,” he recalled.
The singer chose to kick cigarettes.
Last December, it was widely reported that Nelson had quit smoking pot. “I read that somewhere,” he told Lopez, “and I had a nice laugh about it.”
Nelson said he’s pleased to see cannabis becoming legal, either for medicinal or recreational use, in more and more states.
“I always knew that people would realize its benefits,” he said. “It’s on the way and I think it’s a good thing.
“It’s a good thing to forget things.”
Nelson’s 70th studio album, First Rose of Spring, was released on July 3.