WAYLON JENNINGS: “IF I WAS EVERYTHING PEOPLE MAKE ME OUT TO BE, I’DA BEEN DEAD A LONG TIME AGO.”

WAYLON JENNINGS: “IF I WAS EVERYTHING PEOPLE MAKE ME OUT TO BE, I’DA BEEN DEAD A LONG TIME AGO.”

CREEMAINS

Chet Flippo

Originally published July 1973

"Waylon Jennings is a hoss.” The words came from one of the hangers-on in a coach’s office adjoining the gymnasium of a Catholic junior high school in Gallup, N.M. I was sitting around, waiting to meet the man himself, and I pondered those words as they applied to the renegade country singer who is this year’s prime candidate for crossing into popular music. Why not a “hoss,” I decided. That’s a term that hasn’t found much favor anywhere in recent years, even in the South and West where it originated.

Still, it’s an expressive handle that, in its original sense, seems to fit him like his black leathers: hoss, n., a dominant masculine individual, a man who knows what he wants and will take no shit, a man’s man. An anachronism, too, I decided as I waited for him.

Outside, in the murky recesses of the Cathedral School gym, Wayion’s band, the Waylors, were staying an impatient group of Navajo Indians who had been arriving since late afternoon in their pickups—dubbed “Navajo convertibles”—and wanted to see their favorite singer. Their restlessness showed when one or two asked, respectfully, between songs, “Where is Whalen [sic] Jennings?” They were packed two dozen deep around the hardwood stage, mostly high school age, mostly wearing boots and floorlength jeans and mackinaws and cowboy hats. The scratched, carved bleachers were stacked against the tile walls. A sign beside the stage read, “If you score, you may win. If they never score, you will never lose. Defense wins championships.” Ironic, in a way, if irony is what you came here for. These Navajos have won precious little. They live now in adobe hogans and sheet-metal shacks on their reservation that stretches its barren miles through New Mexico and Arizona. Many of them, I learned, had hitchhiked a hundred miles through the snow to see Wayion.

I wondered aloud why they showed such allegiance to a country singer. Father Dunstan, the master of the Cathedral School, answered my question. “Wayion plays here because he wants to,” the priest said. “He’s played here about 15 times in the past two years. He could be in L.A. or New York, but he feels a kinship with the Indians here. He’s part Indian and he knows what they’re going through and they understand him. That song he does—'Love of the Common People,’ you’ll hear it four or five times tonight—has become the Navajo national anthem. They respect him. He sings to them, not down to them.”

An hour and a half later, “The Chief” (as Jennings is called by the Waylors) swept into the office and the small crowd seated among the meager trophies almost snapped to attention. He resembled a biker chieftain: shiny black leather pants and vest, black needle-toed boots; beard, mustache, and long dusty brown hair slicked straight back over his ears and flowing across the collar of his yellow shirt. Two long strides and he was across the room and seated behind a rickety desk. His face—all angles—looked hard, but his eyes were almost vulnerable, gentle. They were always moving, questioning, evaluating, measuring.

His behavior was always the same when entering a room: He would sit facing the door and begin assessing the assorted hangers-on. This person was okay, his eyes would register; that one wanted something from him; the one coming in the door was drunk and wanted either an autograph or a fight. He handled each accordingly and turned to me: “How ya doin’, hoss? Glad you could make it. This ain’t exactly Carnegie Hall, but / like it. Have you met Father Dunstan? He’s somethin’ else. He restored my faith in organized religion. The funniest thing he ever said to me, cornin’ from a priest, was 'The first time I met you,’ he said, ‘I told myself, now that sonuvabitch is gonna be hell on wheels.’ Whoo!”

Out in the gym, the Waylors signaled to Jennings by starting a long introduction to “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line.” He ground out his cigarette and stood up. “C’mon, hoss. It’s time for me to get to work.” We threaded our way through the crowd, now numbering perhaps 500 young Indians, and he signed a few autographs, usually on cowboy hats. “This’s a great audience,” he said. “Now, after I’ve been coming here three years, they’re starting to joke and kid with me a little. They’re very shy. If they say anything to you at all, that’s something."

They pressed closer to the stage as he slung his old Telecaster, with the hand-tooled leather covering, over his shoulder and nodded to his musicians. The Waylors, reflecting Jennings’ taste, are not the sort of band that you see on the Opry. Two of the five are shitkickers: Ralph Mooney, a gin-swigging pedal steel virtuoso whose supercharged playing on Buck Owens’ early recordings virtually invented the Bakersfield sound; and rhythm guitarist Larry Whitmore, another Bakersfield fugitive. The other three are rarities: longhaired Nashville pickers. Bassist Lee Miller, drummer Richie Albright, and frontman Billy Reynolds (a country frontman serves an apprenticeship by acting as a star’s guitarist, harmony singer, and lead singer on the warm-up set before the star appears) were all operating on the fringes of country music in Nashville before they became Waylors.

The band, wearing matching $400 silver belts that Wayion bought for them at an Indian craft shop, wound up “Only Daddy” and Wayion led off with “Never Been to Spain.” He started off low and growling and then kicked it in the ass a little and Albright hit his snare a crisp shot, Mooney slipped a steel line around Wayion’s urgent vocal, and they were off to the races.

I found a square foot of floor space near the stage and tried to watch both the crowd and the band. Wayion, who was obviously enjoying himself, was giving it a little of the old hip action and—the oldest, most effective trick in the book—briefly establishing eye contact with everyone visible in the low light. The Navajo high schoolers were impassive—by any standard—but were all leaning forward, maneuvering to get still closer. Their bodies were moving a little, but their faces were stolid. Since there was never any applause, Wayion phased from one song right into the next. Since he never uses a song list, the band has to pick it up from the first couple of notes. “That keeps ’em on their toes,” he would tell me later. He slid right into “Ladies Love Outlaws” and “Good Time Charlie” and “Love of the Common People.” During the latter song, in particular, there indeed seemed to be an unspoken bond between Jennings and these young Indians, the sort of respect a country performer such as Johnny Cash used to receive from an audience such as this. Perhaps it was a historical warp that united them as opposite poles of an ethos: A century ago they might have been braves and he an outlaw, but they would have shared a common freedom and a certain frontier ethic. As it is today, they have this dank gymnasium and dim memories of individual independence.

Jennings opened up, showed more of himself and more of an intense feeling for his songs in the Gallup gym than in any subsequent shows. He plays Gallup “as often as I can” and has a standing New Year’s Eve date in the gym. Even though he’s part Indian, he’s reluctant to talk about it and is determinedly nonpolitical. “I’m a musician,” he told me. "I stick to my music.”

Searching for a key to this man, I sat down on a bleacher seat and went through the biographical notes I had scribbled while flying to Gallup:

Born Littlefield, Texas, June 15, 1937. DJ at age 12, worked talent shows. Went to Lubbock in 1958, soon was Buddy Holly’s bassist. Went to NY with Holly. On last tour, gave up plane seat to Big Bopper. After plane crash, went back to Lubbock as DJ, moved on to Phoenix where he led popular guitar trio. On A&M from ’63-’65. Formed Waylors in ’64 with present drummer. Doing folk, C&W, Dylan. Bobby Bare took his records to RCA. Chet Atkins signed him in ’65. Series of uneven albums resulted, produced by Atkins, Danny Davis, Lee Hazlewood. Acted in turkey called Nashville Rebel. Started hanging out with Kristofferson in ’65; cut his “No One’s Gonna Miss Me” that year. Grammy for “MacArthur Park." Lived with Cash in their pill days; not overly fond of Cash’s music. Considered maverick in Nashville for hair, dress, band, music, outspokenness, refusal to kiss ass. Married to Jessi Colter, the former Mrs. Duane Eddy. Major influences: George Jones, Chuck Berry, Hank Williams, Holly. Did movie score for Ned Kelly. Until he hooked up with new manager Neil Reshen, career appears to have been guided by amateurs. Just renegotiated RCA contract after being sought by Atlantic and Columbia. Heavy cult following. Loved by women; make that desired by women. Last of the macho cowboys? What of the man himself? Is he, like his cult insists, rough, pilled-up, moody, violent, likely to punch you out for a discouraging word?

Not too likely, I decided, as I watched him finish a set and sign about three dozen autographs and talk with the young Indians who clustered around him.

While the band was loading up Black Beauty, the battered old bus, I wandered back into the office. Father Dunstan was exclaiming over what an exceptional night it had been when Mel the Cop came in to call the police station: “Send me a panel. I’ve got a whole corner of ’em just stacked up over here.” Dunstan looked embarrassed as Mel turned toward me: “Now if you wanta see a sight, come out here.

“This ain’t exactly Carnegie Hall, but I like it. ” —Way Ion Jennings

I’ve got ’em stacked like cordwood.” I followed him into the gym and he pointed to shadowy heaps in dark corners: young Indians, passed out by threes and fours. Mel kicked aside an empty vodka bottle and it skittered hollowly across the playing floor. Not the prettiest way to end a high school dance.

The best things about Gallup are the clean air and the fact that you can get all the L.A. channels on your TV at the Royal Inn. The next evening, Billy Reynolds dragged out some of his “killer” Oaxacan weed and everyone got fired up to watch Once Upon a Time in the West. That’s a slow picture anyway, and the network kept starting it over and putting on the wrong reels. The third time we watched Jack Elam catching that fly there were country musicians screaming for the network to get off its ass. I groped my way to the coffee shop and started working on a giant steak burger. A moment later, Wayion slouched in, looked at my eyes, and laughed uproariously. “Hoss,” he said, “this stuff is...” He trailed off vaguely and shook his head to clear the cobwebs. The little Navajo waitress brought him a burger and we tried to talk. “Man, that movie, it’s been on for five or six hours already.” “Yeah, I couldn’t take anymore of it.” Our conversation became as mangled and reversed as the movie had been. “That fly. That water dripping. Uh.” Finally, a tangible silence enveloped the booth and Wayion (who, as always, sat facing the door) began looking around and his eyes narrowed.

“Paranoid,” he muttered, and he stood up abruptly and threw a fistful of dollar bills on the table. “Take care of mine, will ya, boss? I gotta get outta here.” His long strides took him out the door and out of sight.

Monday morning rolled around and everyone was in better shape. Wayion sat in the coffee shop and toyed with his brown Stetson and chrome louvered shades as he talked about Nashville and country music.

“I just try to be myself, be my own man,” he said. “I’m not bitter about anything. I trusted some people in Nashville I shouldn’t have, but I don’t have time for bein’ bitter. I have things to do.

“Chet [Atkins[, you know, wouldn’t release ‘Common People.’ And I had ‘Cedartown’ in the can for five years and forgot about it and then they released it. The Outlaws album—the only good thing about that album is the cover. That’s my little niece and she always looks at me like that. They wanted me to have a bunch of women around me, but I said, hell no. The rest of that album—they picked it out of the cans while I was sick. Things got to where I was dealin’ with a secretary at RCA, a secretary signed my option. And they send out letters, form letters, addressed Dear RCA Artist.’

“A few weeks ago I considered myself no longer bein’ on that label, but it all got straightened out. I negotiated a new contract and now I’m my own boss. I have complete control. Chet said, you’re tryin’ to ruin everything we’ve done. I said, I don’t want it to ruin me.

“Country music, I tell you. Bein’ from Texas, I have to fight racism, stifle it inside me. Country music’s full of it, but I want no part of that.

“But I’m not universally accepted as a country singer. I have no use for the Opry, for instance. WSM’s not even a country station. Why should I play for them at scale so they can get rich?

“Some people think I have too much hair and dress wrong. I have a lot of opposition and resentment to anything I do, but I don’t pay it any mind. I told a DJ on a station in Winston-Salem—he asked me, ‘What does Nashville think about your hippie band?’ I said I don’t care what those motherfuckers think. He said, ‘You can’t say that on the air.’ I said, ‘Well, boss, I just did.’’

Wayion laughed a husky cowboy’s laugh and his listeners all but applauded.

“But,” he continued, “I feel sorry for the old men in Nashville. They can’t see things are changin’ and they won’t be able to change. They’re the same ones who ruined Hank Williams. They kicked him off the Opry several times, but had to take him back and it galled ’em. But I don’t need ’em. I don’t need Nashville to make it. If I have to move, then I move. They keep talkin’ about the old days, the old relics, Roy Acuff. Well, those relics couldn’t make it now. They still can’t see that times have changed. "

A table away, Harry Pinkerman, Wayion’s driver and aide-de-camp, gave the signal to leave. Pinkerman looks like a healthy version of Porter Wagoner and draws as many female admirers and autograph seekers as Wayion. He shook free of one of those admirers and stood up. “Time to roll, Wayion. We need to be in Albuquerque.”

Jennings dropped a rolled-up bill on the table as he left and he winked: “Wonder if they know what was in that?”

Harley wheeled Black Beauty out of ■ Gallup and down 32 to detour through I Zuni, where there is an old mission I church that Wayion wanted to see. 1 The church was closed, but he got out and inspected the graveyard. He ■ turned up his collar against the stingI ing cold wind and dust and looked W down at the eroding wooden markers I (“Honorable War Chief, Owaleon, Nashe. Died Jan. 24, 1970.”) and then climbed back aboard. On to Albuquerque.

The interior of the bus resembled a gypsy party as we crept through the snow over the Continental Divide. The Chief had Neil Diamond on the bus tape system and Albright and Reynolds put Loggins and Messina on a cassette unit and then broke out bottles of wine and clusters of joints.

Mooney was pulling on a bottle of gin when we heard a clatter in the back of the bus. There was no one back there, so I asked about it. “That’s just ol’ Hank,” Mooney said. “He rides with us and he gets pissed off if don’t nobody offer him a drank. He don’t like this marriage-a-wanna.” Hank Williams? “Sure, ol’ Hank travels with us.” They were serious. “I’m thinkin’,” Wayion said, “about paintin’ ‘Hank Williams Sr.’ on the side of the bus.”

The night manager of the Holiday Inn in Albuquerque was out in the driveway to meet the bus. “Hidy,” he said. “How y’all been, Wayion? Ah’ll send a jug up to your room.”

He hand-delivered quarts of vodka and bourbon. Mooney took one look and spat contemptuously. “Shit. Nobody dranks vodka. That makes you puke. Where’s the gin?”

“Ah damn,” bristled the manager. “Beggars bein’ choosers.”

“Fuck it,” Wayion said. “We’ll move out if things get rowdy.”

We piled back into the bus to eat at Beto’s, a Mexican café. The Chicano waitress was so excited, she was shaking. “Can I have your autograph, Wayion? I’m a big fan of yours. I just love your latest song." Wayion reached for her: “I love you.”

The Caravan East, a sleazo, red velvet, cowboy cocktail joint full of overstuffed chairs and paunchy suburban shitkickers and their lacquered darlings, was packed as the band arrived. Its legal capacity is 404, but Tex B. Ward, our bouffanted, orange-jumpsuited hostess, confided that they’d sold 600 tickets, “and for a Monday night, can ya imagine?” She had also sold the table reserved for the band, so we kind of hung out in an aisle.

The crowd took no note, for on stage, the warmup band, clad in matching pink-and-blue with white patent leather boots, was giving them “Whole Lotta Shakin’” in what sounded like 6/4 time. The babes on

the lighted dance floor, as Harley pointed out, would make anyone ignore any band: slender creatures in backless dingers and leather hip-huggers and bell jeans stretched beyond imagination. “We’ll get nine or ten tonight,” Harley exulted.

Tex B., in her taut orange, homed in on me: “This,” she said pertly, “is where it’s at in Albuquerque. The best people come here. Wayion can draw more here than anybody. Tom T. Hall is second. Wayion’s the number one with me, but don’t tell him. His voice is number one. He’s got,” she shivered, “an earthy... soul voice.”

Reynolds started the warm-up set and the dancers glided onto the floor with their patented Western grab, wherein the male drapes his right hand over his partner’s taut backside. Wayion strolled in and drew a few double takes. As he led off with “Only Daddy,” the women—not just the young ones; some of those honeys were up there in their 40s—gravitated to the stage rails and more or less worshipped the rest of the night.

Between sets, Wayion sat at a table I had finally found and nursed a Coke and talked a little. This was not his favorite kind of audience. “I want to quit playin’ these joints. I’m tired of all the badasses."

He was intermpted by a drunken cowboy in a wheelchair who skidded to the table to demand an autograph.

“Sure, boss,” said Wayion, but his eyes appeared haunted. The crippled cowboy made a corny groupie joke and Wayion’s laugh was forced. “Lord," he said later, “if I was everything people make me out to be,

Fda been dead long ago.”