Waylon Jennings Live in Austin, Texas. April 1, 1989

My favorite Waylon concert. I do not own the copyright of this recording. I strongly recommend the original, high quality DVD for optimum enjoyment. With his great voice, hard-driving music and charismatic stage persona, Waylon Jennings (1937-2002) was one of country music’s biggest stars, and arguably its most naturally gifted. Born into small-town poverty in West Texas, music was his passion from a young age. Having started playing the guitar at eight, by his early teens he was playing in bands. After leaving school at 14, he worked for a few years picking cotton and in various other menial jobs, and then moved to the nearby city of Lubbock, where he got a job as a radio D.J. While working there he met Lubbock-born Buddy Holly, who, though only a year older than Waylon, was already one of the biggest names in popular music. They became good friends and soon Waylon was playing (bass) in Buddy’s touring band. In the middle of a gruelling three-week winter tour by bus with several other big-name performers, Buddy chartered a small plane to fly him and some of the others to the next stop on the tour. Waylon was supposed to be on the flight but he gave up his seat to J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, who had a bad cold. When Buddy learned of this, he joked with Waylon, saying he hoped the bus froze up on the way, with Waylon joking that he hoped Buddy’s plane crashed. It did, killing all on board. Waylon would remain deeply affected by this event for the rest of his life. Throughout the 1960s, Waylon released several successful albums and established lifelong friendships with Johnny Cash (with whom he shared an apartment in Nashville) and Willie Nelson, as well as touring extensively. His music at this time was veering away from the staid traditions of the country genre, and by the early 1970s, rebelling against the sterile conventions of the Nashville studio system, which favored a MOR sound with slick session musicians and syrupy strings, Waylon demanded and won the contractual freedom to record using his own touring band, playing the rough-edged, rock-influenced music they had been playing night after night in packed honky tonks all over the country. The result was a revolution in country music, generally dubbed “The Outlaw Movement”, though Waylon was not fond of the label. There followed years of superstardom, chart-topping albums, cocaine addiction (with a comically unsuccessful attempt by the DEA to bust him), bankruptcy, almost constant touring, collaboration with his long-time friends and fellow ‘outlaws’, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson (The Highwaymen), TV work, and perhaps the best autobiography of a popular music artist ever written (actually, co-written, but it’s Waylon’s authentic voice throughout). This concert, recorded in 1989 for the long-running American TV music program, Austin City Limits, shows Waylon at his full-on best. It also features the legendary pedal steel guitar player, Ralph ’Moon’ Mooney, and Waylon’s wife, country singer Jessi Colter. Ya’ll say you’re ready?