I’m giving a talk – well, it’s a conversation, really – on “How Waylon Jennings Changed My World” at the Country Music Hall of Fame on January 25.
This video shows some of the reasons why.
One of a series of five segments from a 1984 TV special called “The Door Is Always Open,” it exhibits all of the qualities of raffish good humor, self-deprecating charm, soulful expression, and plain-spoken truth that first drew me to country music – and it is curated by Waylon, who provided me with a personal introduction a decade earlier. It’s all in tribute to Sue Brewer, den mother to several generations of Nashville singer/songwriters, who managed George Jones’ club, Possum Holler, but whose home served as both creative exchange and refuge for every one of the performers featured here, up until her death in 1981.
Waylon proves to be the most sardonic (make that “most genuine”) of genial hosts, introducing a beardless and thoroughly engaging Willie Nelson (“We used to go by Sue Brewer’s house,” Waylon says, “and listen to Willie smile”) who opens with a vibrant “I Gotta Get Drunk,” then seconds just about everyone else on guitar, including Faron Young on “Hello Walls,” Willie’s first #1 country songwriting hit. In addition, you get Roger Miller’s irrepressible energy, contagious good humor, and inimitable sound effects (Roger Miller is one of the few artists who could be accurately described as having arrived, purposefully, from another planet), all accompanied by the appreciative laughter and encouragement of every country music legend in the room.
This is what I encountered when I first met Waylon Jennings in 1974 – well, not so much the irrepressible humor but the individualism, the embrace of life (the embrace of the future), the appreciation of eccentricity, the denial of category that has marked every great American artist from August Wilson to Merle Haggard, from Howlin’ Wolf to Mark Twain. It was the beginning of the so-called “Outlaw Movement” – but that wasn’t what drew me to Waylon or the music. It was, rather, his existential embrace of the moment so perfectly exemplified in his collection of Billy Joe Shaver songs, Honky Tonk Heroes. It was that same celebration of everyday reality, without any need for adornment or prettification, that I had first found in the blues.
I remember seeing Willie Nelson at Fan Fair around this same time, just after Red Headed Stranger came out (not long after his other great “concept album,” Phases and Stages) and being just as mesmerized. Neither Waylon nor Willie was selling anything but the truth. “Country music is just as serious as any other kind of music,” Waylon told me then, speaking of a proposed national television appearance. “They wanted me to do ‘We Had It All’ sitting on a horse. I couldn’t do that shit. I told them to fuck themselves. To them [country music] ain’t nothing but a goddamn joke.”
This was the new world I sought entry to. It seemed like everything was possible. (“I think right now that the country’s in the best shape for the future that it’s ever been,” said Waylon, “because the kids are thinking and worrying about things that never even occurred to me when I was a kid.”) If you want a quick run-down on some of that raw, undiluted feeling, check out this video series. You’ll get everything from Hank Williams Jr.’s witty take-off on his own renunciation of respectability, “All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down” to the painful beauty of Mickey Newbury’s “Sweet Memory” to Webb Pierce’s shattering “There Stands the Glass,” branded by his peers as “The National Anthem.”
Traditional country, folk country, outlaw country, classic compositions by Harlan Howard (“Busted”) and Kris Kristofferson (“Sunday Morning Coming Down”) – just set aside any preconceptions, these are performances and performers that defy categorization or idealization. They are simply proudly, defiantly, and irremediably themselves. Just like they should be.
Saturday, January 25, 2014 : 1:30pm
Special Program: Peter Guralnick in Conversation with Robert Gordon
Museum admission or Museum membership required for program admittance. Due to limited seating, a program pass is required for your complimentary seat. Passes will be available for pick-up at the Museum two hours prior to the start of the program, on a first-come, first-served basis. Your pass does not guarantee you a seat after the program begins.
MEMBERS ONLY:Call 615.416.2050 or email Reservations@CountryMusicHallofFame.org to reserve your program pass in advance. Reservations will be accepted until 48 hours before the program, or until the program is at capacity. Your pass does not guarantee you a seat after the program begins.