Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings was born in Texas in 1937, to a poor farmer’s family.  His father moved to Littlefield Texas, when he was a child.  There, he set up a general store.  Waylon was never a great student; he loved music and could play guitar pretty well, at the age of 10.

Aged 16, he left school because he had been in trouble at times, and was not doing well scholastically.  Then he worked for a time at temporary jobs including his father’s store. 

He began a career as a DJ in a small station in Lubbock Texas.  He liked to play artists like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, as well as country, and as a result he lost his job at one time.  Waylon had an exceptional strong deep voice, a little like Johnny Cash, but at first he seemed content to play other singers’ music.

But in 1958/9 he was taken on by Buddy Holly, who was then an up and coming rock and roll artist.  Buddy was on a winter tour, in the cold month of January 1959.  Jennings gave up his seat on the plane to one of the other musicians, who had the flu, and he agreed to travel on Buddy’s tour bus, thought the heating was broken. The two men joked to each other, Buddy saying “I hope your old bus freezes up” and Waylon responding with “I hope your old plane crashes”… a joke that was to haunt Jennings for many years. 

Because of course Holly’s plane did crash, killing everyone on board. 

Waylon returned to singing with his band, the Waylors but he had relatively little success, until talented singer Bobby Bare, persuaded Chet Atkins to listen to some of his singing. 

During the 1960s and 70s, Waylon did battle with the Nashville establishment. 

He was a womaniser and had frequent bouts of drug abuse. He began to get creative control over his work in the early 70s, and to perform “country outlaw” music. he was friends with Johnny Cash at one stage and they shared an apartment, both of them using drugs.

In later years, both men struggled to get clear of their addictions and to control their musical careers.  Their friendship grew closer in the 80s… they both acted as well as sang… Waylon married Jessie Coulter who was his last wife, and Johnny had married June Carter, who was his muse and partner in singing.  

Waylon had a long stint as the narrator of the comedy “southern” show, Dukes of Hazzard and made one appearance as himself, singing, in the show.  He and Johnny both appeared in a remake of the John Wayne Movie Stagecoach. 

The cast also included Willie Nelson and other country singers, and John Schneider, who had played Bo Duke in Dukes of Hazzard, and who was trying to start a country singing career, also was in the TV film.  From this film and other appearances, was formed the “super group”, the Highwaymen... consisting of 4 country superstars who were getting a bit older and were less popular in the charts.  But they had enormous success as a group, touring, and performing new and old songs together, and appealing to older country audiences all over the world. They were Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon.

Later still, in the 1990s, Waylon started to work with the “Old Dogs”, another super group of Nashville singers who were older. This group consisted of Jerry Reed, Bobby Bare, Mel Tillis and Waylon. Shel Silverstein wrote several comedic songs for them, about the funny side of getting older.

Waylon’s talent was awe inspiring, as a guitarist and a singer.  He had great power and depth and his rough deep voice was admired by his fans.  He was a hard working performer, in spite of his frequent bouts of abusing drugs, including cocaine.  He made a heroic effort, in the 80s to get off the cocaine, so as to save his marriage to Jessie Coulter and to stay in good health and spend more time with his son Shooter…

However he was a heavy smoker and over ate, developing diabetes, in his later years. His health got worse, and he had to have heart surgery and later on, an operation to improve the circulation in his legs.  By 2000, due to pain issues, he quit touring.  Late in 2001 he lost a foot, and died in early 2002, of diabetes complications.   He had spoken on the phone to Johnny Cash, his old friend, shortly before his death, and Johnny died a year later.

Waylon’s influence on “outlaw country” artists lives on.  I've always been a huge Cash fan, but I sometimes think that Waylon's voice was at least as good and maybe a bit better.  I managed to see Johnny shortly before he had to give up foreign tours, but I never saw Waylon live. I  wish I had...