Waylon Jennings

Waylon Arnold Jennings, singer and guitarist: born Littlefield, Texas 15 June 1937; four times married (seven children); died Chandler, Arizona 13 February 2001.

Waylon Jennings was always his own man. In the early 1970s, at a time when the majority of country acts were little more than pawns in the hands of producers and record company executives, he and his friend Willie Nelson wrested control from the "suits" and gained an unparalleled level of responsibility for their own careers. In doing so they gave birth to the music's "outlaw" movement and in the process became living legends.

In a career spanning over 50 years, he sold over 40 million records and enjoyed 15 country chart-toppers. The persona by which he is best remembered – dangerous, dark and brooding – belied a ready sense of humour and, although he grew rather tired of his "outlaw" image, he was proud of the artistic independence it came to symbolise. "I've never compromised," he recently declared, "and people respect that."

His influence has been immense, with the music of his maturity proving a potent and influential stew of Texas's blues and honky-tonk with a liberal seasoning of rock 'n' roll. He himself noted: "I've always felt that blues, rock 'n' roll and country are just about a beat apart."

Waylon Jennings was born in Littlefield, Texas, in 1937. Both of his parents were accomplished musicians and his mother taught him to play the guitar. By the time he left school at 14, he had enjoyed local success both as a deejay and as a bandleader. Following a brief period picking cotton, he moved, in 1954, to Lubbock, where work on the local radio's Sunday Dance Party led to a friendship with Buddy Holly.

Holly was to prove a pivotal influence upon the younger man. He hired Jennings to play bass in his band and, in 1958, produced his first record, "Jole Blon", a reworking of the old Cajun standard. In February 1959, Jennings had planned to accompany Holly on the singer's fatal flight, but at the last moment gave up his seat to the singer-songwriter J.P. Richardson, a.k.a. "The Big Bopper". He never forgot the debt he owed to Holly and the latter's adventurous approach to rhythm continued to play an important role in his own stripped-down music.

He returned to radio work and formed another band, the Waylors. They cut records for Trend, and, in 1963, for Herb Alpert's A&M label. These records enjoyed little in the way of success but the country star Bobby Bare was sufficiently impressed with his A&M album Don't Think Twice to recommend Jennings to RCA's head of operations in Nashville, the producer-guitarist Chet Atkins. His début single for the label, "That's the Chance I'll Have to Take" (1965), broke into the Top Fifty and launched him as a major figure in the burgeoning folk-country movement.

He moved to Nashville and spent much of his time with Johnny Cash. Together they enjoyed not only a fruitful musical association but also a life style in which Jennings acquired an amphetamine and cocaine habit that was to endure for some 20 years. "I was," he later recalled, "the happiest druggie you ever saw. If they hadn't been killing me, and killing the people around me, I'd probably still be doing them."

During the latter half of the Sixties he became a mainstay of the country charts and even, in 1970, won a Grammy for his work with the Kimberleys on their version of "MacArthur Park". He was, however, becoming increasingly disillusioned with the lack of control he had over his own career. His frustration surfaced in a series of recordings that looked forward to his later work. These included "Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line" (No 2, 1968) and, in 1970, a fine version of Kris Kristofferson's "The Taker".

In 1972 he finally gained the creative freedom he had sought and started to produce his own records. An incident in which he reportedly took a gun into the studio, and threatened to shoot the fingers off any musician who followed the arrangement rather than playing by feeling, has passed into musical folklore. He used the Waylors in the studio rather than session musicians and the results lit up the country charts.

Over the next 20 years he enjoyed a string of solo hits including "This Time" (1974), "I'm a Ramblin' Man" (1974), "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love" (1977), "I've Always Been Crazy" (1978), "Amanda" (1979) and "Just to Satisfy You" (1982). His appearance on the multi-million-selling Wanted! The Outlaws album, alongside his wife Jessi Colter, Willie Nelson and Tompall Glaser in 1976, marked not only the high point for the "outlaw" movement, but also raised his public profile to dizzy levels. His duet with Nelson "Good Hearted Woman" (1976) topped the charts and was also named "Single of the Year" by the Country Music Association.

He had great fun as the narrator for the television series The Dukes of Hazzard and in 1980 his rendition of its theme became both a pop and country smash. In 1986 he, Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson collaborated on a best-selling album, Highwayman, which spawned several hits and, four years later, a sequel.

Jennings left RCA in 1985 and moved through the rosters of several record labels including Epic, MCA and Justice. He continued to make superb and characteristic records, notably Too Dumb for New York, Too Ugly for L.A (1992) and the Don Was-produced Waymore's Blues Part II (1994). A live set, Never Say Die (2000), on which he was joined by musical disciples such as Travis Tritt and Montgomery Gentry, confirmed that much of the old fire remained.

Last year he was belatedly inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. More recently, he hit the headlines when diabetes forced the amputation of a foot.

A few years ago Jennings tried to make sense of his career:

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. We were rebels, but we didn't want to dismantle the system. We just wanted our own path.

Paul Wadey