Waylon (33 page)

As for Jennifer, she was a dear sweetheart. We were thick as mud. For a while, it wasn’t easy. I could tell she loved me,
but she felt guilty about it. We’d be playing and laughing and hugging, and all of a sudden she’d say “I hate you. I don’t
want to play.”

Finally, I had to call Duane, her father, and tell him that I respected his friendship, but that Jennifer was so loyal to
him that she believed she couldn’t have feelings for both of us. “I want you to know that I will never allow anybody to say
anything bad about you in front of her, and you have to tell her it’s okay to love me, too.” From then on, she called him
Daddy Duane and me Daddy Waylon.

When I got sick, Jessi helped care for me, even learning to cook differently, knowing that her food was medicine. Nursing
hadn’t been part of her repertoire till now, and standing there at the stove, preparing meals so my liver could work, so I
wouldn’t die, she rose to the occasion.

Somewhere inside of her she knew that we belonged together. She never pushed me, or asked questions, even after we were married.
I never quit doing drugs, even at home. I was still as crazy as ever.

I didn’t slow down any. Jessi just kept up.

In June 1975, she kept up and up. “I’m Not Lisa” broke off her debut album and slid pop, eventually becoming the number-four
record in the country. Gold. It was a magic song, something every aspiring musician dreams of, but when it actually happens,
that’s when the uncertainties begin. It’s a strange responsibility, to live up to the hopes of the people who come up to you
and act like they know you. You might never have seen them before, but there is a relationship. They’re not family, not friends,
not your lover, not your child; they’ve bought your record, and heard your song. They do know you, whoever you is.

Jessi had to figure it out. It was the first time she had the responsibilities of a solo act. She’d had a measure of success,
written songs, been featured with Duane, and guested with me. Now it was her turn in the spotlight. There was a part of her
that preferred to remain slightly behind the scenes, over on the left side of the stage, singing harmony on the chorus. Her
giving, and forgiving, nature meant she felt uncomfortable standing in the center. She tried not to be overwhelmed by “Lisa,”
so she wouldn’t become “I’m Not Jessi.” And she wasn’t; she was actually Mirriam.

Jessi was an agnostic when I met her. Maybe even an atheist. She had come to a crisis in her faith before we met, and tried
all the metaphysical doors. She was not even able to open a Bible, working her way through many untraditional philosophies
before reaching back to the God of her youth.

She had prayed before she went out on the stage of the Santa Monica Civic, at one of her first solo shows, and she thought
her prayer was answered when she went out on stage, devoid of fear or insecurity, perfectly pure in the moment of performance.
It was a feeling that lasted for the length of the show, and when she thought about it, as years passed, she decided it was
simply about being free, of letting yourself go in the care of a Higher Power. The gift of faith. She lived it in her daily
life, sang it every day at the piano when she turned to the psalms, and thought that someday I would have the dogged and contrary
conviction of a King David, which is why she was in turn able to help me in my journey through the valley of the shadow. She
instinctively understood that maybe the place where people try to take refuge with drugs is a false security blanketing what
is hidden in their spirit. As a substitute, or a replacement, she knew drugs were a competitor to this rise to self-discovery.
Otherwise, why would they be needed?

Don’t ask me. I was too busy being a Night Walker, as Jessi called it. And being proud of her, for achieving her dream.

I never had a pop hit, at least on the Top Forty. For a while, in the early seventies, my favorite phrase was “I couldn’t
go pop with a mouthful of firecrackers.”

People would ask me how I felt about “I’m Not Lisa” going gold. Did I mind?

Mind? Jessi was so happy, getting checks and buying presents for everybody she loves. For me, she put the down payment on
our house, Southern Comfort.

But they’d continue: You’ve been struggling all these years, and here comes Jessi, first album, no reputation, and she has
a million-selling record right out of the chute.

“Being a fuckin’ legend,” I’d have to say, “I don’t give a shit.”

* * *

Jessi was up for numerous honors at the 1975 Country Music Association awards. I wasn’t going to be the one to steal her thunder,
knowing how much acceptance means when you’re first starting out, and so I went with her, even though I couldn’t tolerate
the CMA.

They were suspicious of me, as well. “Waylon,” they greeted me as I walked in. “You’re not here to start trouble, are you?”

Who, ol’ Waymore? Just because one year I’d stormed out of the awards and didn’t mind telling anyone who would listen why.
It was Kris Kristofferson’s night; he was a shoo-in for several categories. I had been scheduled to perform “Only Daddy That’ll
Walk the Line.” They said they were strapped for time, and they wanted me to cut the song to one verse and chorus. I said,
“Why don’t I just dance across the stage and grin? Maybe do one line. That’ll give you a lot of time.”

They told me not to get smart. Either I did it or I got out. They said, “We don’t need you.” I decided that was true, and
I left.

The CMA were always pulling fast ones like that. They were more concerned with their television show than honoring country
music. One year they tried to make Ricky Van Shelton sing a song in the wrong key. They’d already cut the track for him to
put his vocal over and he said it was too high. They told him to get off the grounds when he went out to his bus. Ran him
off. They like to think that they’re doing it for You, the country music fan, but they’re really in business for themselves.

Now they needed me again, because I was up for Best Male Vocalist, Song of the Year (“I’m a Ramblin’ Man”), Album of the Year,
and Entertainer of the Year. As I walked in with Jessi, scratching at my tuxedo, her telling me I should have hit them, Neil
came over to me. “You won Male Vocalist,” he whispered. “Jessi didn’t win anything.”

So much for secrecy. If nobody’s supposed to know the awards before they opened the envelope, how did word get around? My
heart went out to Jessi, and though my first instinct was to get the hell gone, I thought that maybe by staying I could raise
some of the larger problems that faced country music, such as its close-mindedness and suspicion of change.

When it came time for Best Male Vocalist, Tanya Tucker and Tammy Wynette made a great show of opening the winner’s envelope.
I tried to be nice in my acceptance speech, thanking everybody for their support, though I knew that block voting and mass
trading between the big companies—we’ll give you two hundred votes for your artist if you give your four hundred votes to
our writer—probably had more to do with it than anything else.

At least Glen Campbell, the host, was happy. “All I can say, Waylon, is it’s about
damn
time.” Predictably, the CMA got a few letters protesting Glen’s use of profanity.

I was happier watching Charlie Rich get drunk and burn up the Entertainer of the Year award, holding a cigarette lighter to
the envelope, please. They went to grab him, but when Charlie was drunk, it was best to stay out of his way. I remember riding
back from a Dripping Springs Picnic in University of Texas coach Darryl Royal’s golf cart, and Charlie just wailing.

Oh, yeah. John Denver won Entertainer of the Year. Now that’s what I call country.

B
eyond the law. Outsiders. A whip and a gun, head ’em off at the pass, and good guys don’t wear black.

If you look through the scrapbook of any kid who grew up in the forties and fifties, male or female, you’ll find a frayed
sepia photograph of the child dressed like a cowboy, down to the spurs, six-gallon hat, six-guns drawn, looking about as tough
as any six-year-old has a right to be. The great American hero, as filtered through the movies and popular lore, and now,
in the hands of a ragged assortment of Hillbilly Central characters, country music.

Excuse me; make that Pop music. Capital
P
, as in platinum.

On January 12, in the bicentennial year of 1976, RCA released
Wanted: The Outlaws.
It was a compilation of mostly previously released tracks, starring myself, Willie, Jessi, and Tompall. The cover was pure
Old West, a yellowed reward poster with the stagecoach air of the nineteenth-century frontier, Dodge City to Tombstone.

We weren’t just playing bad guys. We took our stand outside country music’s rules, its set ways, locking the door on its own
jail cell. We looked like tramps, Willie in overalls, me with my hair slicked back and Levis, fringe sprouting on our cheeks
and chins. I’d begun growing my face fur in the early seventies, when I was down with hepatitis. I thought, hell, I’m not
going anywhere. I think I’ll grow a mustache. Next I moved on to the beard.

Jessi’s mom came to watch out for me when I returned home from the hospital. Her name was Helen, and she thought I hung the
moon. I might be a wild man, but she’d had a vision about me a long time before and knew I didn’t mean Jessi any harm. Myself
was another matter.

“How’s my good-looking king of the road doing? Is my daughter treating you right?”

She inspected my new facial growth, scraggly and scruffy as it was. It takes me a long time to grow anything. I don’t get
a five o’clock shadow until two o’clock the following afternoon, and my face seems dirty for a month. I still don’t have any
hair on my chest; it must be the Indian in me.

“Son,” said Jessi’s momma, “that beard and mustache sure looks like a bunch of piss-ants going to a funeral.”

“I don’t believe the way she talks in front of you,” said Jessi.

I had grown it just for kicks, but when I looked in the mirror, it was like I was starting to look like myself. We all were
undergoing transformations. I mean, can you imagine Willie without a beard and those braids? If we took on the guise of cowboys,
it was because we couldn’t escape the pioneer spirit, the restlessness that forces you to keep pushing at the horizon, seeing
what’s over the next ridge. When I put the black hat on and walked to the stage, carrying my Telecaster, I was staking my
own piece of land where the buffalo roam. Don’t fuck with me, was what we were saying.

We knew we were good. We loved the energy of rock and roll, but rock had self-destructed. Country had gone syrupy, dripping
honey all over its sentimentality. Progressive country? Any music had better progress or it’ll get left behind.

We were loose. Nothing to prove. I never believed you could tell people you were great; you had to show them. And increasingly,
on the radio, at the concerts and festivals, we were getting our chance. We could see we were gathering a new audience, with
their own shape and personality. A lot of times, they weren’t country music fans, but they weren’t asking us to change. They
liked us the way we were. Country fans, maybe because they’d known me for longer, could sometimes give us a hard time. One
night in Atlanta, some guy yelled at me, “Take that damn hat off, shave that face and do ‘Waltz Across Texas.’”

I said, “You come around after the show and I’ll waltz you right up against the side of the wall.” I liked to challenge the
audience.

We were walking contradictions, and we didn’t mind. We were rebels, but we didn’t want to dismantle the system. We just wanted
our own patch. In the South, especially, they try to live by the rules; it’s the legacy of the Bible Belt. Anybody that breaks
the rules is a sinner. When you come into a working system, and start trying to change it, you are regarded as the Devil.

Anybody can think whatever they want to think, but don’t try to tell me how to go about my “bidness.” It’s hard to tell a
Texan what to do. We accepted the way people were and hoped they’d accept who we were. What we talked about was real, the
truth. You could depend on it.

Outlaw music.

Hazel Smith, the great Nashville media specialist, writer, ultimate fan, and publicist for Hillbilly Central, christened it
when asked by a disc jockey from WCSE in Ashboro, North Carolina, what to call the renegade sound that was bubbling out of
Nineteenth Avenue South. He wanted to base a show around me, Willie, Kris, Tompall, and all the others who were making a name
for themselves going up against the Nashville establishment. Other stations, one in Flint, Michigan, and another in Austin
aptly named KOKE, were also starting to herald the new breed of rogue hillbilly.

“Hillbilly Central” was the name of the column Hazel wrote for
Country Music
magazine. She had a bird’s-eye view of all the frantic comings and goings as she sat out in the front office and directed
some of the stranger traffic that started dropping by. The building was open twenty-four hours, and she’d sometimes come in
to work and find people strewn about the offices, passed out next to an empty wine bottle or an open bottle of pills. Another
night of “losing weight.”