But while the outlaw decade gracelessly retreated, Waylon—battling at least three lawsuits over business matters—saw clearly for a moment. In the Spanish Revival manse on Seventeenth Avenue that housed his office, he often lingered when the night was closer to dawn than midnight, phoning friends or employees who’d gone to bed hours earlier. This night somebody called him. The voice on the other end of the line described a cancer-ridden man in Raleigh, North Carolina, whose last wish was to meet him. When the sun came up, Waylon told Richie Albright to arrange it. They’d soon be in Charlotte for a show and afterward could head over to Raleigh before traveling to another gig in Grifton, North Carolina, in the eastern part of the state.
So on May 24, 1980, Waylon’s bus eased down the residential street where the failing Joel Jackson lived. Accompanied by Albright, Ralph Mooney, and Gordon Payne, Waylon—in his usual vest, boots, and gambler’s hat—eased into the living room where Jackson was sleeping on the couch. “I was just standing back,” recalls Albright, “and Waylon was standing next to him. His wife woke him up and said, ‘Waylon’s here.’ And the guy opened his eyes and said, ‘I’ll be God-damned.’”
For a half hour, the visitors popped open beers and chatted about music. And Waylon, like a southern politician, spun around the room, signing albums for friends and family who’d come to visit and gathering up in his arms the dying man’s four-year-old daughter. Says Payne, “The thing I remember is the guy held Waylon’s hand with both of his hands. ‘Can’t believe you’re here!’ He was real drugged. ‘Can’t believe you’re here!’ And then he would nod off. The guy’s wife, she sat back there with the biggest smile on her face the whole time. It was really something.”
When Joel Jackson finally fell into a deep sleep, Waylon and the boys stepped one by one onto the bus and rolled south to their next show. Seven hours later, the stricken man died.
Acknowledgments
* * *
THE LIST IS always long, the journey filled with friends, family, happy coconspirators, and reluctant accomplices. Thanks to you: Rosanne Cash, Dianne Davidson, Kris Kristofferson, Lisa Kristofferson, John Leventhal, Richie Albright, Billy Ray Reynolds, Jesse Reynolds, Rodney Crowell, Kyle Lehning, Jerry Bradley, Gordon Payne, Hugh Bennett, Jack Clement, Fred Foster, Don Davis, Guy Clark, Carl Knight, Ralph Mooney, Earl Sinks, Rodney Bellamy, Girl George, Donnie Fritts, Billy Swan, Alan Mayor, Hazel Smith, Ray Pennington, Ronny Light, Elroy Kahanek, Dan Beck, Inez Johnson, Chris Leuzinger, Bill Walker, Rick Blackburn, Cowboy Joe Babcock, Steve Shoen, Mike Farrell, Jim Casey, Even Stevens, Jim Malloy, Mary Matthews, Ranger Doug Green, Terry George, Dick Bay, Joe Nick Patoski, Mark Rothbaum, Harry Warner, Paul Worley, Ernie Winfrey, Robert Ogles, Don Boner, Richard Weize and Andy Merck at Bear Family Records, Tommy Wayne Burlett, Rick Trunfio, Carolyn June Lallemand, Rochelle Bilow. The office of the Criminal Court Clerk of Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County. The staff of the Nashville Room at the Nashville Public Library. The office of the Criminal Court Clerk of Shelby County, Tennessee. Steve Andreassi and Cindy Baffa of the IUP Lodge and Convocation Center, Hoboken, New Jersey. Chris Ratliff in Special Collections at the University of Memphis, Deborah O. Cox at the Metropolitan Government Archives of Nashville and Davidson County. Michael McCall and John Rumble at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Archives. My agent, Jim Fitzgerald. Publisher Cal Morgan at It Books, who championed this book from the very start. And editors Jennifer Schuster and Mark Chait, who helped mold Outlaw into a more effective narrative. Thanks also are due to Trina Hunn at HarperCollins. John Jackson, Che Williams, Matt Kelly, Tom Tierney, Rob Santos, Toby Silver, and Jim Parham at Sony Music. Danelle Moon in Special Collections and Archives at San Jose State University. Henry Shipman and other staff members of the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University. The staff of Ridgetop (Tennessee) City Hall. The staff of the Maryland Room at the University of Maryland. At Le Moyne College: Carrie Carpenter, Linda LeMura, Julie Grossman, Wayne Stevens, Phil Novak, Melissa Short. The Commodores: Darrell Berger, Lewis Shiner, Michael Minzer. Two angels in Nashville: Ruth White and Tamara Saviano. My wife, Leslie, and our children, Emily, Cate, and Will.
Notes
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The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was made. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature on your e-book reader.
A Note about Sources
As I researched and wrote Outlaw, I tapped several indispensable periodicals: The Tennessean (known before 1970 as the Nashville Tennessean), Nashville Banner, Nashville Scene, the Nashville Retrospect, and the Vanderbilt Hustler. The value of the monthly magazine Country Music, which featured the work of Dave Hickey, Martha Hume, Michael Bane, Patrick Carr, Bob Allen, and others, is self-evident in this narrative. So is the writing and reporting of Chet Flippo, who rarely let the outlaws stray from his radar during the 1970s. My treatments of Waylon, Willie, and Kris were supplemented by several books: Waylon: An Autobiography, by Waylon Jennings with Lenny Kaye; Waylon: A Biography, by R. Serge Denisoff; Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, by Joe Nick Patoski; Willie: An Autobiography, by Willie Nelson with Bud Shrake; and Kristofferson: The Wild American, by Stephen Miller. In addition, my discussion of Robert Altman’s Nashville was helped by Jan Stuart’s The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman’s Masterpiece. Patrick Allen’s Literary Nashville provided a delightful introduction to fiction writers based in and passing through the Athens of the South, and David Halberstam’s The Children and Don H. Doyle’s Nashville Since the 1920s offered concise accounts of various important chapters in the history of the city.
Introduction
1 “I just don’t think”: Author interview with Dianne Davidson, July 12, 2011.
1 “It was like, everybody”: Author interview with Kris Kristofferson, November 16, 2010.
2 “I wish I could”: Ibid.
5 His gutsy, throbbing sound: In 2011, debate over current outlaws showed up in two much-discussed essays: Peter Cooper, “Country Boys Are Wearing Out Calling Cards,” available at http://blogs.tennessean.com/tunein/2011/07/11/country-boys-are-wearing-out-calling-cards/, and Chet Flippo, “Nashville Skyline: So, Is Justin Moore Really an Outlaw? Time for a Reality Check,” available at www.cmt.com/news/nashville-skyline/1666703/nashville-skyline-so-is-justin-moore-really-an-outlaw-time-for-a-reality-check/.
6 By the late 1960s: I’ve broadly defined a two-square-mile area of Nashville’s near southwest side as the West End. Much of the area is, in fact, known by Nashvillians as the West End, but my more liberal boundaries include other named neighborhoods, such as Music Row and Hillsboro Village.
6 “The thing about the Exit/In”: Author interview with Davidson.
8 “To me, the best thing”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
Chapter One: The Newcomers
9 “How remarkably lucky”: Robert Penn Warren, “A Reminiscence” in John Edgerton, ed., Nashville: The Faces of Two Centuries, 1780–1980 (Nashville: PlusMedia, 1979), 205–20.
9 “Nashville is a pallid”: Gene Lees, “Nashville: The Sounds and the Symbols,” High Fidelity Magazine, April 1967.
9 When veeps from RCA: Author interview with Johnny Rosica, November 4, 1996.
10 “It is located in a section”: Larry L. King, “The Grand Ole Opry,” Harper’s, July 1968.
10 Young people who showed up: Author interview with Lewis Shiner, August 2, 2010.
10 “Nashville certainly was no hotbed”: Author interview with Michael Minzer, August 2, 2010.
11 “was largely a soft kind”: David Halberstam, The Children (New York: Random House, 1998), 110.
12 Alarmed by the violence: Ibid., 234.
13 “I had eleven years”: Author interview with Kris Kristofferson, June 14, 2011.
14 “I checked into this hotel”: Author interview with Kristofferson, November 16, 2010.
14 “It was his first record”: Ibid.
14 “After everybody else fell”: Ibid
.
15 “It seemed like every place”: Ibid.
15 It was “poetical stuff”: Author interview with Jack Clement, July 21, 2010.
15 “We happened to be the”: Robert Oermann, Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain: Tales of Romance and Tragedy (New York: Center Street, 2008), 296–97.
16 “The way I looked at it”: Willie Nelson with Bud Shrake, Willie: An Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 117.
17 “I didn’t get to tell him”: Author interview with Fred Foster, May 17, 2011.
18 “I couldn’t get anybody”: Ed Ward, “Willie Nelson: Breakthrough of A Lone-Star Legend,” Rolling Stone, January 15, 1976.
18 “I went to catch”: Nelson with Shrake, Willie, 117.
18 “He was just king”: R. Serge Denisoff, Waylon: A Biography (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973), 103–5.
19 “Waylon played lead”: Author interview with Richie Albright, July 20, 2010.
19 “My reputation was growing”: Waylon Jennings with Lenny Kaye, Waylon: An Autobiography (New York: Warner Books, 1996), 92–93.
20 “Herb kept looking”: Ibid, 95.
20 “Well, he always had”: Grant Alden, “Bobby Bare/Bobby Bare, Jr.: Bobby Bares, All,” No Depression, July–August 2002.
22 Rather, it prided itself: “The Gold Guitars,” Newsweek, April 4, 1966.
22 When fifteen compositions: This statistic was noted in an obituary of Howard on the BMI website by Robert K. Oermann, available at www.bmi.com/news/233082.
23 “That’s the biggest”: Author interview with Chet Atkins, May 16, 1996.
23 “Chet was so secure”: Author interview with Jim Malloy, September 22, 1995.
23 Although Chet never objected: John Grissim, Country Music: White Man’s Blues (New York: Paperback Library, 1970), 67.
25 “When we’d get to Nashville”: Rich Kienzle. Southwest Shuffle: Pioneers of Honky-Tonk, Western Swing, and Country Jazz (New York: Routledge, 2003), 246–47.
25 “I worked for Steve”: Author interview with Atkins.
25 “I spread myself too thin”: Author interview with Chet Atkins, August 28, 1995.
Chapter Two: Nashville Sounds
27 “A quiet place”: O. Henry, “A Municipal Report,” in The Complete Works of O. Henry, vol. 2 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1953), 1554.
28 Kris’s memories of childhood: Author interview with Kristofferson, June 14, 2011.
28 “He was really a highly”: Ibid.
28 “I thought I was special”: Sally Quinn, “Kristofferson: Hits and Myths,” Washington Post, May 18, 1971.
29 “But I didn’t want to do”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
30 “It’s never been easy”: Waylon Jennings with Lenny Kaye, Waylon: An Autobiography (New York: Warner Books, 1996), 19.
30 The moment she and Monroe: Monroe apparently enjoyed such reactions from the younger generation, as a meeting with Jerry Lee Lewis at one of Nashville’s Fan Fair conventions illustrated. “We went on down there, there’s a lot of stars there and stuff,” describes Hazel Smith. “And so [Bill] just took hold of my hand and put it through this arm of his, and he said, ‘Watch this.’ And he walked into the middle of the room—I didn’t know who it was—and he touched this guy on his shoulder. And this guy whirled around like he was just going to knock somebody one. Well he looked at Bill straight in the face, and he bowed three times to the floor! And Bill had to reach out and grab his hand. It was Jerry Lee. Jerry Lee was so honored to see Bill, and Bill made him shake his hand. He could not shake Bill’s hand; Bill had to make him. He was just so honored to see Bill Monroe. Are you believing that now?” Author interview with Hazel Smith, July 21, 2010.
32 “He was easy to get along with”: Patrick Carr, “Waylon Jennings,” Country Music, April 1973.
32 “They were remarkably”: Denisoff, Waylon, 56.
32 “I heard him say”: Author interview with Gordon Payne, August 2, 2010.
33 “I didn’t like picking”: Michael Bane, Willie: An Unauthorized Biography of Willie Nelson (New York: Dell, 1984), 36.
34 “I remember when we”: Bill DeYoung, “Willie Nelson: Funny How Time Slips Away,” Goldmine, January 6, 1995.
34 “We went to a very small”: Michael Hall, “Willie’s God, Willies God,” Texas Monthly, May 2008.
35 Willie graduated from high school: Bane, Willie, 50.
37 When Chet learned: Author interview with Bill Pursell, February 20, 1997.
37 In a conversation in the mid-1990s: Author interview with Atkins.
38 “It had it all”: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 143.
38 “He was like an idol”: Author interview with Reynolds, January 27, 2012.
41 “I just didn’t”: Irwin Stambler and Grelun Landon, The Encyclopedia of Folk, Country and Western (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 501–2.
41 As Chet once said: Nelson with Shrake, Willie, 178.
42 One night, he sat: Author interview with Billy Swan, November 5, 2010.
42 “I suddenly felt like”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
42 “At about twelve o’clock”: Author interview with Swan.
44 “So I walk out of his office”: Ibid.
45 “He went in”: Author interview with Kristofferson, November 6, 2010.
45 “I talked to his wife”: Ibid.
45 “[They thought] I’d gone down”: Ibid.
45 “It was like a two-page”: Author interview with Clement.
46 “He was born with his”: Tom Burke, “Kris Kristofferson’s Talking Blues,” Rolling Stone, April 25, 1974.
46 Often, he fell in: Author interview with Reynolds.
47 “I was trying to make”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
47 “They wouldn’t let me demo”: Peter Cooper, “Freedom’s Still the Most Important Thing for Me,” No Depression, January–February 2005.
Chapter Three: Let a Flower Be a Flower
49 “I know a lot of times”: Author interview with Kristofferson, November 6, 2010.
50 “What was coming back”: Author interview with Swan.
51 “They all wanted to be around”: Author interview with Jim Casey, October 29, 2010.
51 “I got out of the car”: Author interview with Albright.
52 “Jack had enough”: Author interview with Casey.
53 “Monument had sort of”: Author interview with Foster.
53 “You’ve got to let a”: Ibid.
53 “Kris always wrote alone”: Philip Self, Guitar Pull: Conversations with Country Music’s Legendary Songwriters (Nashville: Cypress Moon, 2002), 34.
54 “I couldn’t carry him”: Ibid., 35.
54 “He was a super-likable”: Author interview with Swan.
54 “I stayed out there”: Michael Kosser, How Nashville Became Music City U.S.A.: 50 Years of Music Row (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard, 2006), 176.
55 “It was Beckham”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
55 “That was our world”: Author interview with Swan.
55 “I don’t know what”: Author interview with Foster.
55 Kristofferson recalls singing: Author interview with Kristofferson, June 14, 2011.
56 “He sang the first song”: Author interview with Foster.
56 “He just has such a way”: Ibid.
56 Indeed, nursery-rhyme-simple: Tom T. Hall’s “Margie’s at the Lincoln Park Inn” was a top-ten country hit for Bobby Bare in 1969. Like Kristofferson, Hall injected smart lyrics into country music, but a reading of his 1979 memoir The Storyteller’s Nashville suggests that he thinks Kristofferson got too much credit.
56 That day in Hendersonville: Author interview with Foster.
57 “I had no idea”: Ibid.
57 “I went down and hid”: Michael Simmons, Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends: The Publishing Demos, 1968–72 (Light in the Attic Records, 2010).
57 “When I showed it”: Ibid.
57 “Beckham was a big”: Author
interview with Kristofferson, November 6, 2010.
59 “The thing about”: Author interview with Smith.
59 “Waylon had a”: Author interview with Reynolds.
59 One night after a concert: Author interview with Albright.
60 “For a lot of people”: Author interview with Berger.
61 “So we are having”: Patrick Thomas, “Ex-GI Folkie Kris Kristofferson,” Rolling Stone, March 18, 1971.
62 “We went out”: Author interview with Donnie Fritts, November 15, 2010.
62 “We’d all sit around”: Johnny Cash with Patrick Carr, Cash: The Autobiography (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 205.
62 In the autumn of 1970: Steve Pace, “Cash and Easy Rider Hopper,” New Musical Express, October 17, 1970.
62 “It made everybody”: Author interview with Kristofferson, June 14, 2011.
63 Jack Clement had told: Author interview with Clement.
64 “It was a beautiful”: Author interview with Casey.
64 “The breezy twang”: John S. Wilson, “Newport Folk Festival Becomes Music Bazaar,” New York Times, July 19, 1969.
65 “If there was one thing”: Author interview with Kristofferson, November 6, 2010.
65 “It was six o’clock”: Author interview with Swan.
65 “He was going to make”: Author interview with Foster.
Chapter Four: Nothing Left to Lose
67 “Some unlikely fare”: Alice Alexander, “Exit the Red Dog,” Vanderbilt Hustler, November 10, 1971.
68 “Danny and I”: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 170.
69 “Waylon liked Danny”: Author interview with Reynolds.
69 In his autobiography: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 168.
72 “I didn’t know”: Author interview with Paul Worley, November 8, 2010.
73 “I started taking”: Ibid.
74 “The courts should”: LaWayne Satterfield, “School Integration Court Order Study Looms Next Week,” Nashville Banner, December 19, 1970.
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