Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Waylon Jennings: Nashville Rebel

Waylon Jennings: Nashville Rebel

Radio script

Lenny Kaye: Waylon didn?t come to Nashville hoping to overturn things. He wanted to work in the system, he respected the system. He respected country music, he didn?t want to change it, he wanted to actually make it live up to its real-life values.

Jessi Colter: he was just always able to tell the truth, get an angle on it with humor, deliver it with strength, and I hate to use words that are a little off-color, but he knew how to kick it, he knew how to punch it.

Richie Albright: He knew exactly what he wanted to do, and alls he really wanted to do was have control of his music. That?s all it was ever about.

HOST: WAYLON JENNINGS IS ONE OF THOSE LARGER-THAN-LIFE ICONS IN AMERICAN CULTURE. HE?S THOUGHT OF AS AN ?OUTLAW,? SOMEONE WHO FOLLOWS HIS OWN WAY.

WELL, THAT?S TRUE, WAYLON DID FOLLOW HIS OWN PATH. HE WAS A GIFTED SONGWRITER WITH A VOICE THAT COULD CUT RIGHT THROUGH YOU WITH A LETHAL DOSE OF HONESTY.

BUT FOR A LONG TIME, HE WAS NOT IN CHARGE OF HIS CAREER. SO AFTER MANY YEARS OF WORKING IN THE SYSTEM, WAYLON HAD TO GO FOR BROKE AND TAKE CONTROL OF HIS MUSIC. THAT?S WHEN THE ?OUTLAW? CAME TO HIM.

IN THE NEXT HOUR, WE?LL TAKE A LISTEN TO THE LIFE OF WAYLON JENNINGS. WE?RE JOINED BY HIS WIFE JESSI COLTER, HIS LONG TIME DRUMMER RICHIE ALBRIGHT, FRIENDS KRIS KRISTOFFERSON AND TONY JOE WHITE, BIOGRAPHER LENNY KAYE AND MUSIC WRITER ANTHONY DECURTIS.

I?M COWBOY JACK CLEMENT, AND WELCOME TO ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.?

Music fades

WAYLON GOT HIS START AS A RADIO DEEJAY OVER IN LUBBOCK, TEXAS. IT WAS THE LATE 1950?S, AND HE BECAME FRIENDS WITH AN UP-AND-COMING ROCK AND ROLL STAR, BUDDY HOLLY.

LENNY KAYE CO-WROTE WAYLON JENNINGS AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Lenny Kaye: And one day Buddy came in and said, ?you?re coming on the road with me, here?s a bass.? And Waylon looked at it and thought how am I going to play this thing? He didn?t realize it was the bottom 4 strings of the guitar. But he went on the road with Buddy for the ill-fated Winter Dance Party tour. And it was his first taste of being on the road and being a professional musician, and getting the energy, and watching Buddy, who cared about Waylon and cut his first record at Norman Petty?s studios in Clovis, a thing called ?Jole Blon,? which was kind of the cajun classic. Waylon didn?t know the French, so they kind of made up sounds. But Buddy liked him, Buddy was a mentor, so he would talk to Waylon after the gigs about how he was going to make Waylon the first artist on his new label, and he was going to take care of Waylon.

Music: Jole Blon (1:56) 1958

?JOLE BLON? PERFORMED BY A YOUNG WAYLON JENNINGS AND PRODUCED BY BUDDY HOLLY.

A YEAR LATER, ALL OF THE PLANS THAT WAYLON AND BUDDY HOLLY HAD MADE DISAPPEARED. BUDDY, RICHIE VALENS AND THE BIG BOPPER DIED IN A PLANE CRASH.

LENNY KAYE.

Lenny Kaye: Well, he was shattered, he was really, he didn?t know which end was up. Here he goes out on the road with a rock superstar and comes home feeling guilty. The last conversation he and Buddy had before Buddy took off in the plane, Waylon was supposed to be on the plane. Buddy was sitting, Waylon remembers, Buddy was eating a hot dog and leaning against a wall on a chair, and Buddy says to him ?I hear you?re not comin??? and Waylon says, ?yeah, I gave my place up to the Big Bopper,? who was a big man and needed a little room and wanted to get off this bus that was freezing and kept on breaking down. So Buddy says to Waylon ?well, I hope your bus freezes,? and Waylon says to Buddy ?well, I hope your darn old plane crashes.? And that was the last words he said to Buddy, and then to live with that guilt and that sense that if fate handed you a different set of cards, what would it have been like? It could have been him, and it tortured him for a couple of years. It took all the life, everytime he got up to sing, he would see Buddy there smiling next to him. And finally he had to leave Lubbock and move to Arizona and start afresh.

WAYLON STARTED A NEW LIFE IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA, BUT THE MEMORY OF BUDDY LEFT ITS MARK.

Lenny Kaye: Waylon was never a young man after Buddy Holly?s death. In fact, probably at a time when he might have spun a little pop or spun a little rock, cause all those musics were in him, he moved toward country because he didn?t feel young. It was a time in rock and roll of teen pop idols, and he didn?t feel that. He felt like he?d matured, that Buddy Holly?s passage and the amount of struggle that he had to do to get back to where he began kind of aged him. There was always a sense that this is not a boy, this is a man. And he brought that feeling into his interpretations.

TWO YEARS AFTER BUDDY?S DEATH, WAYLON STARTED TO RECORD AGAIN. HERE?S ?MY BABY WALKS ALL OVER ME? FROM 1961.

Music: My Baby Walks All Over Me (2:09) 1961

?MY BABY WALKS ALL OVER ME? PERFORMED BY WAYLON JENNINGS.

YOU?RE LISTENING TO ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.? I?M COWBOY JACK CLEMENT.

WAYLON AND HIS GROUP, THE WAYLORS, BECAME THE HOUSE BAND AT A CLUB CALLED JD?S IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA.

RICHIE ALBRIGHT PLAYED DRUMS WITH WAYLON AT JD?S.

Richie Albright: That was a club that had two stories, rock and roll downstairs and upstairs seated about 1500 people, and Waylon got, the following got to where on a Saturday night it might be into the second or third set before people started dancing and boogie-ing, because they were just sitting there listening to him sing. And then all that banter he did in between. He was a pretty funny guy, man.

GUITARIST LENNY KAYE IS THE CO-AUTHOR OF WAYLON?S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Lenny Kaye: He became the local star, played several sets a night. For the first couple sets people would just sit and watch him, then they?d start dancing, and it?s the kind of musical training that you can?t buy for love or money. The fact that you have an audience there that cares about what you?re singing, who encourages you, and will go with you.

WAYLON?S WIFE, JESSI COLTER, LIVED IN PHOENIX AT THE TIME.

Jessi Colter: There?s stories that most of the children were bred out in the parking lot where Waylon was playing at JD?s, cause it drew the best looking cowboys and the prettiest women. And he had a great cross-section of people, from doctors, lawyers, to bikers to cowboys to Native Americans.

Music: Stop the World (And Let Me Off) (2:03) 1965

WAYLON JENNINGS AND HIS BAND PERFORMED ?STOP THE WORLD (AND LET ME OFF).?

THAT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST SONGS THAT WAYLON RECORDED IN NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE. SINGER BOBBY BARE HEARD HIM PLAY IN PHOENIX AND BROUGHT HIM TO MUSIC CITY IN 1965.

GUITARIST LENNY KAYE CO-WROTE WAYLON?S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Lenny Kaye: Nashville at that time was insular and kind of exciting from within. There was a great after-hours scene, you?d go hang out at Tootsie?s, then when Tootsie?s closed on Broadway, you?d go across the street to Line Boys (?) Coffee Shop and stay out all night and take some speckled birds or white crosses or whatever fuel you were using to keep going, and then go over to Sue Brewer?s apartment, which was like an open house for all the Nashville singers that were off the road. And you could just keep on partying and mingling with your peers, and in a way not worry what was going on outside of Nashville. It was almost a rural society within popular music.

NASHVILLE HAD A SMALL TOWN FEEL, BUT MUSIC WAS A BIG BUSINESS. WAYLON JUMPED RIGHT IN AND MOVED THERE IN 1966. BEFORE LONG, HE WAS STARRING IN A MOVIE THAT GAVE HIM A NICKNAME.

WAYLON?S WIFE JESSI COLTER HAS HAD A LONG CAREER AS A SINGER AND SONGWRITER.

Jessi Colter: Nashville Rebel was the name of the movie and the character in it, he was a character that was coming up against some problems in the music business, and it?s quite a good little story, but that was also a song written by Harlan Howard for the movie, and the song has just kind of stuck, and it was probably a little self-prophesy-ing, if the truth be known.

HERE?S ?NASHVILLE REBEL.?

Music: Nashville Rebel (1:51) 1966

?NASHVILLE REBEL,? PERFORMED BY WAYLON JENNINGS, WHO PLAYED THE NASHVILLE REBEL IN A MOVIE.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TO ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, ANTHONY DECURTIS.

Anthony DeCurtis: I think Waylon Jennings is one of these artists that remained pretty consistent throughout his career, you know he really wasn?t someone who was chasing fashions at all. And so the question with someone like that is how often does the zeitgeist come around to him, and I think in the 70?s it came around in a big way.

IN A MINUTE, WE?LL HEAR HOW WAYLON DECLARED INDEPENDENCE FROM THE NASHVILLE WAY OF DOING THINGS, AND A LOT MORE MUSIC.

I?M COWBOY JACK CLEMENT, AND YOU?RE LISTENING TO ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.?

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WELCOME BACK TO ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.? I?M JACK CLEMENT.

Music (under): Only Daddy That?ll Walk the Line (2:22) 1968

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TO ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, ANTHONY DECURTIS.

Anthony DeCurtis: There was a sense that things turned over pretty quickly, that you were going to get a few years of success, then you were going to go back to pumping gas. So it was a struggle to try to be successful, and I think Waylon Jennings was making a decent living as a musician, but he was somebody that big time success certainly had eluded. Even as he was living with somebody like Johnny Cash, Cash was having his own problems and the stories about these two guys are legend, but there was a sense that Waylon Jennings? moment had still not arrived and it really wouldn?t arrive for at least another decade.

WAYLON JENNINGS AND JOHNNY CASH WERE ROOMMATES IN THE MID 60?S, A TIME WHEN THEY BOTH WERE TAKING A LOT OF PILLS. CASH HAD PAID A LOT OF DUES ALREADY AND WAS SOON HEADED TO TELEVISION AND BIG STARDOM. WAYLON, ON THE OTHER HAND, WAS WORKING HARD WITHIN THE SYSTEM.

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THAT?S ?ONLY DADDY THAT?LL WALK THE LINE? PERFORMED BY WAYLON JENNINGS, BUT NOT WITH HIS TOURING BAND THAT MOVED FROM ARIZONA TO NASHVILLE WITH HIM.

PRODUCERS IN NASHVILLE CONSIDERED TOURING BANDS TO BE TOO SLOPPY FOR RECORDS, SO THEY HIRED MUSICIANS THAT SPECIALIZED IN PRECISE STUDIO PLAYING.

WAYLON?S WIFE, JESSI COLTER.

Jessi Colter: When I came to Nashville, I couldn?t figure out what they were doing. Took me a number of years to figure out what they were doing. And it was a little less pretty than I wanted to realize, cause it had such a nice, good-ole-boy relaxed appearance, but in fact it was a very small membership to the controlling of the industry, and they didn?t give artists a free hand musician-wise, producer-wise or finance-wise. They held all the reins, and they were very strict about controlling the product. Well, Waylon was a creative spirit, and he had taught his musicians to develop his sound and was a great arranger of his own music. And he had tried Herb Alpert?s suggestions, he had done songs Buddy Holly wanted him to sing, he had recorded for Chet Atkins and done all these Harlan Howard songs, and he had done all that. So, after he had been a fine apprentice, to say the least, it was time to do his own music, and it was just not to be had in the bureaucracy of the industry at that time in Nashville, which was very much behind compared to LA or New York.

Music: Ladies Love Outlaws (2:33) 1972

WAYLON JENNINGS PERFORMED ?LADIES LOVE OUTLAWS? IN THE EARLY 70?S.

CO-AUTHOR OF WAYLON?S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, LENNY KAYE.

Lenny Kaye: His records in the 60?s when he was still a Nashville crooner are really good records in the context of country music in the 60?s. But I think he felt that it wasn?t all his story, and so what happened in the 1970?s is that he attempted to find out who he was, to close the space between the music he heard in his head and the music that was given, in a certain way.

WAYLON HAD A WAY OF TURNING ANY TUNE HE WAS GIVEN INTO A WAYLON JENNINGS SONG. BUT THAT DIDN?T MEAN IT WAS SATISFYING FOR A RESTLESS ARTIST LIKE HIM.

WAYLON?S WIFE, JESSI COLTER.

Jessi Colter: Waylon was not an out and out rebel by any means. He was a fine, Southern gentleman, but he had the guts to go into a very closed membership. It?s a lot like Harvard ? if your daddy has points, fine. It?s that way, the little structure that controls it is small, and he had the courage to stand for himself and he didn?t do it in a rough way. He just got tired of them adding things to his records that he didn?t put on there, and got tired of them using him for their purposes, just finally started cutting himself, and then cut the Outlaws album. And like Roger Miller says ?Nashville will claim you after you do something that?s so big that they can?t deny it.?

Lenny Kaye: They had a justly legendary Nashville, capital N, Sound, capital S. Chet Atkins oversaw it, and it was geared toward efficiency: you used the same players, you used the same studio, you worked with a small circle of songwriters. And so the music was country, that?s what it was, it wasn?t too much of anything else. And Waylon, especially when he was learning his craft at JD?s in Phoenix, liked all kinds of music. He liked folk rock, he liked rock, you know he was on the road with Buddy Holly. He liked country music, and he didn?t fit, he was sort of like a square peg in Nashville?s round hole, and though most people would be grateful for that, he had a career, he could go out on the road for 300 days a year. Of course, he would come back with no money, because it was this very in-bred little circuit, but he felt that there had to be something more. And blessed with a voice and a sense of rhythm that was unique to him alone, he finally went after it.

Jessi Colter: Well they actually pulled out on him when he was trying to cut Honky Tonk Heroes, and they wanted to put Danny Davis, who was a fine musician but was not the producer for Waylon, wanted to put horns and other things on his records. And at that point, Waylon didn?t want that. He wanted a pure, simple sound, so when he went for Honky Tonk Heroes and gave Billy Joe Shaver a chance as a writer, using his songs, which were very close to the earth, and had spiritual value as well as great fun value, they actually pulled out on him, and they thought they were going to break him. They literally pulled the producer, everything, and he continued to work in the studio alone and proceeded to teach himself the engineering and everything. He and Richie recorded that album alone, and it was the beginning of how Waylon really felt musically. And it shows. You can hear the difference, He just always went for excellence, and so when he got the chance at their choosing, to try, it just warped science, you know?

Music: Honky Tonk Heroes (3:35) 1973

?HONKY TONK HEROES,? WAYLON JENNINGS? DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FROM THE USUAL WAY OF MAKING A RECORD IN NASHVILLE.

YOU?RE LISTENING TO ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.? I?M COWBOY JACK CLEMENT.

WAYLON?S TOURING BAND REJOINED HIM IN THE STUDIO, AND HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO MAKING THE RECORDS HE WANTED. THEY WORKED HARD AND GAINED LARGER AND LARGER AUDIENCES FOR HIS NEW, STRIPPED-DOWN SOUND.

BUT WAYLON WAS STILL FINDING HIMSELF BROKE AT THE END OF THE DAY. LIFE ON THE ROAD WAS GETTING THE BEST OF HIM ? MENTALLY, FINANCIALLY AND PHYSICALLY.

LENNY KAYE CO-WROTE ?WAYLON: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.?

Lenny Kaye: But everybody wanted to keep on feeding the machine, and it didn?t matter that you would be twisted by the time you got to the 7th gig on the 7th day in the 7th town. You really just had to keep on going, and when he got sick and began to see what he had come to when the fog cleared, he realized that he couldn?t continue in the old way, and that he was going to have to fight for a new way.

DRUMMER RICHIE ALBRIGHT HAD TO RECOVER FOR A WHILE FROM THE CONSTANT LIFE ON THE ROAD. WHILE ON BREAK, HE HAD PLAYED WITH SOME ROCK BANDS AND SEEN A DIFFERENT SIDE OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS. HE RETURNED TO WAYLON?S BAND AND LET HIM KNOW THERE WAS A BETTER WAY. THAT?S WHEN WAYLON MADE HIS MOVE.

Richie Albright: I had been gone for a while, and had gone back to Arizona, had to get my health back. I remember the night I told him, he said ?I wish I could go with you.? (laughs) Anyway, I was gone for about a year and a half or so, and had just gone back to work with him and he come down with hepatitis and so he was sick and tried to get some money from RCA, and they wanted him to re-sign for $5000 or something like that. And I said hold it, you need to talk to this guy, a lawyer up in New York called Neil Reshen. So they met and he started managing Waylon and Willie, actually, and that?s how that whole outlaw thing started, too.

WAYLON WROTE A SONG ABOUT THE MUSIC BUSINESS, ?ARE YOU SURE HANK DONE IT THIS WAY??

Music: Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way? (2:56) 1974

?ARE YOU SURE HANK DONE IT THIS WAY?? PERFORMED BY WAYLON JENNINGS. HE SOON FOUND HIMSELF GOING WAY BEYOND WHERE HANK WILLIAMS HAD BEEN.

DRUMMER RICHIE ALBRIGHT.

Richie Albright: After he was sick and everything, and things started to come back together, we were talking, and he was talking about how the sound had changed, this that and the other, and I said well if you got a sound system, lights and everything and carry it on the road, then you got the same thing every night. He started asking me questions about that, and I said well that takes some roadies, and he said ?what?s a roadie??

IN THE EARLY 1970?S, COUNTRY MUSIC DIDN?T HAVE HUGE TRAVELING ROAD SHOWS LIKE ROCK AND ROLL STARS HAD. WAYLON WANTED MORE CONTROL OVER HIS SOUND AND HOW PEOPLE HEARD IT LIVE.

DESPITE HIS SUCCESS, WHAT HE STILL DIDN?T HAVE WAS A HIT RECORD. HE AND RICHIE ALBRIGHT FOUND IT WITH THE SONG ?THIS TIME.?

Richie Albright: We were over at Glaser?s doing it (This Time), it?s what they called Hillbilly Central back at the time, and we started it couple of times, it was kind of feeling good. We kept getting crossed up on the intro, the way he phrased the first couple of bars, and he said ?ah to hell with this, it ain?t no good,? so I stopped. It was the first time I got out of the booth, and said ?Waylon, this thing is feeling good, let?s do it one more time now, I know what you?re doing now, let?s do it.? So we went back and that was the cut, and that actually was his first #1 record.

Music: This Time (2:27) 1974

WAYLON JENNINGS? FIRST #1 HIT, ?THIS TIME? RECORDED IN 1974.

IN A MINUTE, WE?LL HEAR ABOUT WAYLON?S UNIQUE SOUND AND A LOT MORE MUSIC.

I?M COWBOY JACK CLEMENT, AND YOU?RE LISTENING TO ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.?

Break 2

WELCOME BACK TO ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.? I?M COWBOY JACK CLEMENT.

RAY BENSON AND HIS BAND ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL TOURED WITH WAYLON MANY TIMES. THEY GOT TO HEAR HIS SOUND UP CLOSE.

Ray Benson: Well, he stripped it down. That style of Good Hearted Woman was just the bass drum going boom boom boom boom, and the beat, which was a certain kind of beat, that was Waylon?s sound, and it was very simple, but his voice was so strong and so unique that it was, you knew it was Waylon the minute it came on

GUITARIST AND CO-WRITER OF ?WAYLON: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY? LENNY KAYE.

Lenny Kaye: There?s a certain telepathy with a band, and Waylon especially loved his band, especially Richie Albright, the drummer, who sat behind him, and ?looking at the best half of me,? as Waylon would sing. And they had a true empathy. When they got into the studio, it was a different animal, according to Nashville, and one of the things Waylon wanted to do was hear his records with as much edge as when he was on the road playing these country dives. He wanted it to be a little messy around the edges. He wanted it to be unpredictable and have a spark of life even if it wasn?t quote ?perfect? in the eyes of the Nashville session world.

DRUMMER RICHIE ALBRIGHT SET THE STANDARD FOR THAT ?BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM? OF WAYLON?S SOUND.
.

Richie Albright: Waylon?s idea of the rhythm that he learned from Buddy, and he called it ?rickety rack? is what he called it, is just a double time especially on the electric guitar, where it just kind of hummed. That was just the core of the thing, then his picking on top and driving bass, then when I came along we added the kick. But he always liked it on the quarter notes, 4s, mainly.

HERE IT IS ON ?GOOD HEARTED WOMAN.?

Music: Good Hearted Woman (2:57) 1974

?GOOD HEARTED WOMAN? PERFORMED BY WAYLON JENNINGS.

DRUMMER RICHIE ALBRIGHT SPENT A LOT OF TIME IN THE STUDIO WITH WAYLON.

Richie Albright: Musically, he was a master of simplicity. A lot of those tracks we did, he?d play for 4, 5, 6 guitars, each of them doing this little old thing, then you?d put them all up in there and it just cooked. And he knew every bit of that intricate, simple approach to his music and his songs.

Music (under): Never Could Toe the Mark (2:58) 1984

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TO ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, ANTHONY DECURTIS.

Anthony DeCurtis: I once interviewed Johnny Cash after Waylon had died and asked him about his old roommate, and we were talking about Waylon?s persona, and he said there was something about Waylon?s voice that told you ?I love you, but not too much.? ?I love you, but don?t tell anybody.? And there really was that element in Waylon Jennings? singing and in his general persona, there was a sense not necessarily that he was holding back, but that you had to come to him. And at the same time, he was a guy that played with a lot of ferocity, so those are virtues that are more typically associated with rock and roll.

AND LIKE THE ROCK AND ROLL LIFE IN THE 70?S, WAYLON FELL INTO HARDER DRUGS AND A WILD IMAGE.

RAY BENSON FROM THE BAND ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL.

Ray Benson: Waylon was addicted to cocaine and had a really hard time with it, you know. Almost killed him while he was doing it, but eventually found a way to kick it. But that was also that whole outlaw image, too, that outlaw thing. We toured with him and his bodyguards were Hell?s Angels, for cryingoutloud.

WAYLON DECIDED TO QUIT DRUGS FOR GOOD ONCE HE AND HIS WIFE JESSI HAD A SON, SHOOTER JENNINGS.

DRUMMER RICHIE ALBRIGHT.

Richie Albright: Well, it was pills in the early years, then it turned to cocaine later. He just did it when he decided to do it. That?s exactly the way he had a very strong will and a word that was ironclad ? if he gave you his word or said he would do something, he did it every time.

Music fades

MUSIC WRITER ANTHONY DECURTIS.

Anthony DeCurtis: Often in country there?s a kind of detachment between the singer and the song, I mean the whole tradition that you have songwriters and you have singers, that?s a kind of Nashville staple. Whereas you have Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson and these kind of characters kind of smashed that and brought a kind of singer/songwriter quality, where you are personally invested and emotionally implicated in the music, whether you wrote the song or not, is a key thing to what Waylon accomplished as both a singer and recording artist.

DRUMMER RICHIE ALBRIGHT.

Richie Albright: Thing is about his songs is that so many of them were about him, the things he went through and his thoughts. I told him once ?hey man, the way you write, not a whole lot of people can cover your stuff? (laughs), unless they?re just like you, god help us (laughs).

CO-AUTHOR OF WAYLON?S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, LENNY KAYE.

Lenny Kaye: They lived the life that they sang about. It was edgy, it was exciting, and it was the moment that country music modernized in the same way that rock and roll had modernized a few years earlier. It wasn?t just teen music, it was music made by staunch, strong, mature musicians who liked to raise hell.

EVENTUALLY, THAT RAISING HELL GOT THEM IN TROUBLE WITH THE LAW, AND TRUE TO FORM, WAYLON WROTE A SONG ABOUT IT.

Music: Don?t You Think This Outlaw Bit?s Done Got Out Of Hand (2:58) 1978

WAYLON JENNING SANG HIS TALE OF GETTING BUSTED FOR DRUGS, ?DON?T YOU THINK THIS OUTLAW BIT?S DONE GOT OUT OF HAND??

YOU?RE LISTENING TO ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.? I?M COWBOY JACK CLEMENT.

Music: Luckenbach, Texas (3:20) 1977

ONE OF WAYLON?S CLOSEST FRIENDS AND COLLABORATORS WAS WILLIE NELSON.

WAYLON?S WIFE, JESSI COLTER.

Jessi Colter: I think it was just a chemistry to start with. They just had a brotherhood and a caring for each other, and the people loved to hear them sing together. You know, Waylon brought Willie out of Texas, he was worried, after Willie had a dose of Nashville, he left and went back to Texas and kept touring. You can tour in Texas all your life and never leave it if they like you. And so, he was very concerned about Willie, and he spoke with Steve Wynn, who owned the Golden Nugget, and tricked Willie into playing in Vegas, and that was the beginning of Willie coming out of Texas. They just sort of rode off into the sunset together and people loved hearing them sing and they?d carry on like a couple of little boys. That?s how they acted around each other.

THEY EVEN FOUGHT LIKE BROTHERS. WAYLON WROTE A SONG ?BOB WILLS IS STILL THE KING,? ABOUT HOW NO MATTER WHO IS IN TEXAS, WILLIE NELSON OR NOT, THEY COULDN?T BEAT WESTERN SWING MASTER BOB WILLS.

Richie Albright: Yeah, no matter who is in Texas, I guess he was mad at Willie at the time. They were always just going around and around with nothing, you know? It was just funny. Willie knew he could mess with Waylon, so he?d just do things to get him riled.

BOTH WAYLON AND WILLIE HAD THEIR SCRAPES WITH THE LAW, AND IT WAS A GOOD WAY TO PLAY JOKES ON EACH OTHER.

RICHIE ALBRIGHT.

Richie Albright: When Willie come out to visit Waylon after he moved out to Chandler, and Willie pulled in one morning with the bus right at Waylon?s house and everything, and so they were sitting there at the table, and Waylon had his new neighbor come over, his new neighbor in Chandler, and they were talking and Willie was talking about this that and the other, and finally Waylon says, ?Willie, did I ever tell you that my new neighbor is a retired FBI agent?? (laughs) And he says that Willie just turned white as a sheet. He got a big kick out of doing that.

HERE THEY ARE TOGETHER SINGING ?THE WURLITZER PRIZE.?

Music: The Wurlizer Prize (2:09) 1977

?THE WURLITZER PRIZE? SUNG BY WAYLON JENNINGS AND WILLIE NELSON.

WAYLON, WILLIE AND TWO OTHER FRIENDS OF THEIRS, JOHNNY CASH AND KRIS KRISTOFFERSON, JOINED TOGETHER IN THE MID 1980?S TO MAKE SOME MUSIC.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR TO ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, ANTHONY DECURTIS.

Anthony DeCurtis: The Highwaymen came along at a time when all four of its members were in need of a career uplift. And it worked really well. You had a sense of these four great talents getting together, and each of the four parts was great, but the whole really added something. Their communication with each other, and their sense of musical community, and this sense of a Mount Rushmore of country rock that these four guys represented, really moved people. There was an element that this wasn?t just any performer performing great songs, it was in a sense these four guys telling a cultural history that, even back in the late 80?s, early 90?s, was beginning to recede, you know, the world from which all these guys emerged. So there was something very moving about it, but at the same time also it could feel very natural to see the four of them together. They liked each other.

SINGER SONGWRITER KRIS KRISTOFFERSON.

Kris Kristofferson: Well, you know, it was really kind of an accident. We were all over in Switzerland doing a Christmas show with Johnny Cash. John said to Willie as we were picking guitars one night, John said ?you?ve done an album with every recording artist on Earth except for me.? (laughs) Willie had just done about 40, I guess. So they decided they would do an album. So Willie told me that it would be to my advantage to pitch us some songs for that thing, so I decided I?d go, and Waylon lived in Nashville, so he was there, And the producer brought this song in, ?The Highwayman,? and he wanted us all to sing on it, and so we did, and I guess they liked the way it sounded well enough to cut some more songs, and the next thing you know, we were the Highwaymen. I wish I?d known at the time what a remarkable thing it was that we?d all four of us be together in any way, you know? But it was definitely high times for me, because every one of them was my hero.

Music: Highwayman (3:04) 1984

?HIGHWAYMAN? SUNG BY WILLIE NELSON, JOHNNY CASH, KRIS KRISTOFFERSON AND WAYLON JENNINGS.

WAYLON BECAME GOOD FRIENDS WITH HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING LEGEND MUHAMMED ALI. HE WROTE A SONG ABOUT HIM FOR THE HIGHWAYMEN.

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON.

Kris Kristofferson: Waylon was unlike anybody else. He was a real open-minded human being, and I haven?t run into a whole lot of them. And he was true to the school right up until the end, and to me, my favorite song of his now is ?I Do Believe.? It?s so simple and so eloquent, but that?s Waylon.

DRUMMER RICHIE ALBRIGHT.

Richie Albright: A very gentle soul, just a prince of a guy. He had that rough and tough thing on the outside, but he was really just a teddy bear, especially if there?s a kid walking around.

Music: I Do Believe (3:25) 1994

?I DO BELIEVE? SUNG BY THE HIGHWAYMEN, WAYLON JENNINGS, WILLIE NELSON, JOHNNY CASH AND KRIS KRISTOFFERSON.

?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL? WAS PRODUCED BY JOYRIDE MEDIA, PAUL CHUFFO AND JOSHUA JACKSON ARE THE PRODUCERS.

OUR EXECUTIVE PRODUCER IS JOHN VERNILE.

ALL SONGS ON THIS PROGRAM CAN BE FOUND ON THE RCA/ LEGACY SET ?WAYLON JENNINGS: NASHVILLE REBEL.?

SPECIAL THANKS GO TO JEFF JONES, ADAM BLOCK, ROB SANTOS, RICH KIENZLE, JOHN JACKSON, ERIC MOLK, TOM CORDING, STEVE BERKOWITZ, SHANNON MUELLER, NIKKI MITCHELL, TONY JOE WHITE, LISA KRISTOFFERSON, NADINE NASSAR AND ANDY CAHN.

I?M COWBOY JACK CLEMENT, AND THANKS FOR LISTENING.

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