Waylon Jennings' Country Rise

As one of country music's deepest and truest voices, Waylon Jennings thrilled crowds and topped charts with his bluesy brand of outlaw tunes, all the while playing by his own rules.

Lanky and scraggly, with a gravelly Texas baritone that betrayed years of hard living, Jennings was made for the part of Nashville rebel.

The Music City sound of the early 1970s was a low-risk cocktail of smooth crooners, string sections and session musicians.

Countrypolitan, they called it, as it was meant to appeal to mainstream audiences. When Jennings blew into town, the establishment was ripe for a shake-up.

Born in rural Littlefield, Texas, in 1937 to musical parents, Jennings learned to play guitar early. At age 17 he moved to Lubbock, where he met rising rock star Buddy Holly. The two became friends, and when Holly left his band, the Crickets, to pursue a solo career, Jennings toured as Holly's bass player.

It was Jennings who, on a cold Iowa night in 1959, gave up his seat to J.P. Richardson (aka the Big Bopper) on the flight that killed Richardson, Holly and Ritchie Valens.

After that brush with his mortality, Jennings always seemed to live one step ahead of the Reaper.

After a stint in Phoenix, he headed for Nashville, Tenn., where for a time he roomed with outlaw fellow traveler Johnny Cash. Even in those early years, Jennings' talent impressed a young Kris Kristofferson.

"I was stunned the first time I heard him singing," Kristofferson said after Jennings' death in 2002. "I was a janitor at the studio at the time. I became a fan for life, thrilled by the passion and intensity of his voice."

Turn It Up

That vocal power shone on Jennings' 1971 hit "The Taker," written by Kristofferson and Shel Silverstein. In it, Jennings alternated his tone between smug contempt and envious rage for the man who outfoxed him for a woman's love:

"He's a charmer, he'll charm her, with money and manners that I never learned/He's a leader, he'll lead her, across pretty bridges he's plannin' to burn."

Working within the system at A&M Records and later RCA, Jennings found success but felt creatively stifled. The record labels wielded near-total control of album production. Executives preferred the clean-cut style of Glen Campbell and Conway Twitty.

Jennings would air his frustration in a song he penned himself, "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" (1975), a twangy plea for Music Row to rediscover its soul amid the "rhinestone suits and new shiny cars." Hank Williams couldn't have imagined the turn country music would take in the 1970s.

Outlaw country. The music of long, hot highways to nowhere, smoky honky-tonk bars and hazy mornings after. In a 1996 radio interview, Jennings explained the origin of the outlaw ethos.

"We realized that we were not going to be accepted on (Nashville's) terms," he told NPR's Terry Gross, "because we couldn't be that. And I didn't want to wear no spangly suits, even though I thought some of the guys looked good in them. I didn't want to wear that."

Jennings negotiated a hardball deal with RCA and won creative control over future albums. First up was 1973's "Honky Tonk Heroes," an album that "changed the music industry," as Jennings put it. It featured a stripped-down sound using Jennings' own band, the Waylors, and earthy songwriting by Jennings and fellow Texan Billy Joe Shaver.

"I think it changed country music," Jennings said. "I got my freedom and got the right to produce my own things. Some of those tracks on there are only three instruments and me singing, which was unheard of in those days. They thought that was a demo."

With songs like "Ain't No God in Mexico" and "Black Rose," an ode to interracial romance that was banned by some country stations, "Heroes" wasn't your father's country music. The bare-bones ballad "You Asked Me To" charted at No. 8 among country singles.

Jennings struck gold once again with 1974's "The Ramblin' Man," scoring top 10 hits with the rockabilly stormer "Rainy Day Woman" and its tender antipode, "Amanda."

True to the album title, Jennings toured constantly, playing upward of 300 dates a year.

Fellow singer-songwriter and Nashville malcontent Willie Nelson came along for the ride. The Nelson-Jennings duo, with their long hair, lived-in wardrobe and go-to-hell bent toward the establishment, cemented the outlaw archetype. David Allan Coe and other artists soon followed suit.

Nelson and Jennings collaborated on several albums, including 1976's "Wanted! The Outlaws," which also featured Jennings' wife, Jessi Colter. It was the first country album to sell a million copies.

A 1978 effort, "Waylon & Willie," included the Grammy-winning No.1 single "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys." Waylon and Willie implored America's new mothers: "Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks/Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such."

On a strictly advisory level, "Mamas" seemed to hit its mark: As the 1970s waned, so did the outlaw genre.

Still, Waylon Jennings was on a hot streak. He'd proved the Nashville cynics wrong and succeeded on his own terms. He wrote and sang the theme song to the wildly popular TV series "The Dukes of Hazzard" and narrated every episode in his inimitable style. But fame came at a cost.

By his own reckoning, Jennings spent the better part of two decades hooked on cocaine. It was an expensive and destructive habit, and when he finally kicked it for good in 1984, he felt lost.

"As corny as it sounds, it's like it's another person," Jennings said in 1996. "Everything you do when you're on cocaine, you can blame it on him. When you quit, you actually mourn for that person, because that person dies." He credited his wife, Jessi, for helping him through the withdrawal.

The outlaw of the 1970s rode out the 1980s in various guises. In 1985, Jennings appeared as a turkey-truck driver in the Sesame Street feature film "Follow That Bird."

The Road To No. 1

Also in '85, he teamed with friends and fellow legends Nelson, Cash and Kristofferson to form the Highwaymen. The supergroup scored a No. 1 single, "Highwayman."

By the 1990s, Jennings had settled into the role of outlaw elder statesman. His 1998 album, "Closing In on the Fire," drew guest appearances by Sting and Sheryl Crow.

The Jennings legacy rambles on with son Shooter, who has recorded two Southern-rock-flavored albums, and with widow Colter, who continues to record and perform.

Shortly before his death at 64, Jennings was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. Saddled with health problems and perhaps his own stubborn pride, he skipped the induction ceremony.

"I've never compromised," he told the Associated Press in 1992, "and people respect that."