Waylon: An Autobiography

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About Waylon: An Autobiography

Product Description Waylon Jennings relates the story of his life as a country music star. His beginnings were poor but he became Buddy Holly's protege before sinking into drug abuse and 3 failed marriages. His success came when he met his present wife, Jessi Colter. From Publishers Weekly As one of the original "outlaw" country music stars, Jennings (b. 1937) has done his best to live up to the image of the hard-living honky-tonker who doesn't take crap from anybody. With the help of writer and rock guitarist Kaye, an older, calmer, drug-free Jennings now relates his life story, from his childhood in a dirt-floored house in West Texas, through his busted marriages and hard-partying days, to his current existence as happily married man (to country star Jessi Colter) and member of the Highwaymen, the country music supergroup made up of Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson. The narration reads as if Jennings is relating stories over a beer. There are wonderfully evocative accounts of playing bass for Buddy Holly on his last tour?Jennings gave up his seat on the plane that crashed, killing Holly and the Big Bopper?and of Jennings and Johnny Cash sharing an apartment in Nashville in the early '60s. There's a little more than most readers need to know about Jennings's money troubles, sex life, personal feuds and various drug habits, and there are a few too many testimonials from younger performers (e.g., Billy Ray Cyrus telling Jennings, "You're like a god to me"). As a raconteur, Jennings is by turns self-deprecating and self-indulgent, but never less than entertaining, and almost always charming. This soulful book should interest most anyone curious about the life of a pop musician, and is likely to be essential reading for country fans. A selected discography of Jennings's recordings is included. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal A country music star tells of his poor childhood and rise to stardom. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Lately, we are hearing a lot about country music stars from Texas, what with Daniel Cooper's Lefty Frizzell , George Jones' I Lived to Tell It All , and a forthcoming life of Ernest Tubb. Fans interested in the professional making of music will probably prefer this autobiography of Nashville rebel Jennings to any of those. Waylon and fellow Texan Willie Nelson led the early-1970s revolt against the slick, sweet Nashville sound. They broke country music out of the nostalgic, pseudorural ghetto it inhabited during the 1950s and 1960s and into the free-spending (long-haired, drug-gobbling) rock market. Waylon tells the story of that achievement from the inside, paying plenty of attention to his squabbles with Nashville and his obsession with crafting a song. Before and during that testimony, he tells of his youth and early days in music (including a short stint with Texas rocker Buddy Holly), his years of pill popping (no drinking, though; he never could stand the stuff), and his satisfied life and mind since his marriage to singer Jessi Coulter. Instead of gussying up a text that probably started out on tape, coauthor Kaye wisely casts the whole book as a long oral history. Jennings' voice--grammatical gaffes, personal idioms, and all-- speaks throughout, and by golly, it's a charming voice. Ray Olson Review Country music fans will relish Jennings' autobiography, which explores his early childhood, break with traditional country music, success in the field, and his eventual addictions. The result is a revealing account of Waylon Jennings' influences, heritage, and lasting contributions to the field of country music. -- Midwest Book Review From the Back Cover Born dirt-poor (his family had the dirt floor to prove it), Waylon Jennings took all the grit of his hometown of Littlefield, Texas, into his soul and his sound. From childhood,