[3] His mother was a former professional opera singer, and she died from a brain tumor on May 21, 1999, [4] and his younger sister, Camille Nelson, is a folk musician.

[4] He studied cello with teacher Kate Reeves and then with Ryan Selberg, the principal cellist for the Utah Symphony.

[6][2] This led to his developing creative ways to play the cello: "strumming it, banging it and using pizzicato much more aggressively – using my thumb, fist, fingernail and palm".

[4] In 1999 Nelson signed with Stone Angel Music, an independent record label in Salt Lake City founded by Paul Cardall.

[11] In 2009 Anderson saw a YouTube music video that local musician Jon Schmidt had uploaded "for fun",[12] featuring Schmidt on piano and Nelson on cello and kick drum performing a mashup called "Love Story Meets Viva la Vida", which combined the Taylor Swift country pop "Love Story" with Coldplay's Baroque pop "Viva la Vida".

[13] Anderson hired the duo to perform on videos that he would professionally film in unusual locations and upload to his store's YouTube channel.

[13][11][12] Nelson brought in his neighbor, Al van der Beek, a songwriter and music arranger who had a home recording studio, to the project.

[2] Nelson's video performances of "Cello Wars" (2011) and "Beethoven's 5 Secrets" (2012) debuted at number one on the YouTube charts.

Nelson performs a variety of musical styles, including classical, folk, new age, and inspirational.

[1] In 2017, he performed a duet together with his daughter Lucy, who sang, in the One Voice Children's Choir's music video of "Only Hope".