June 15: Happy Birthday Waylon Jennings

[TMC]

https://lebeauleblog.com/2018/06/15/...ylon-jennings/

Waylon Jennings (1937-2002) was born in Texas and learned to play guitar as a young boy; by the time he was 12, he was performing for radio stations in the Lubbock, Texas area. In the late 1950s, he became a protege of sorts to Buddy Holly, and was hired to play bass on Holly’s Winter Dance Party tour in early 1959. On a fatal night in February of that year, Jennings gave up his seat on Holly’s small Beechcraft plane to J. P. Richardson. He began making country records in the early sixties, and gradually became more successful and better-known. During this time he also became friends with Willie Nelson.

Jennings’s career peaked in the mid-seventies, when he, Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and a few others were the biggest names in the “outlaw” movement in country music. Jennings had a dozen #1 country hits, most of them in the years 1974-79, when some of his singles were reasonably successful crossover hits on the Hot 100. This one, although not one of Jennings’ own compositions, may have been his most recognizable hit from that period:


During the eighties, Jennings remained successful. He was the narrator of The Dukes of Hazzard, and composed and sang the show’s theme song. Later in the decade, he was a member of the supergroup The Highwaymen. Like many musicians, Jennings had serious substance abuse problems, and he died of complications of diabetes in 2002. He was a minor character in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, played by none other than his son, Waylon Albright “Shooter” Jennings, a fairly successful country performer in his own right.