Waylon Jennings Bio, Wiki, Age, Early Life, Wife, Songs, Death, Legacy, Awards

Waylon Jennings Biography

Waylon Jennings was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings’s first recording session and hired him to play bass.

Waylon Jennings Age

Jennings was born Waylon Arnold Jennings on June 15, 1937, in Littlefield, Texas, United States of America. He died on February 13, 2002, in Chandler, Arizona, United States of America at the age of 64 years.

Waylon Jennings Early Life

Jenning was born in Bitner farm, near Littlefield, Texas. The Jennings family line descended from Irish and Black-Dutch. Meanwhile, the Shipley family moved from Tennessee and settled in Texas. The Shipley line descended from Cherokee and Comanche families.

The name on his birth certificate was Wayland, meaning land by the highway. His name was changed after a Baptist preacher visited Jennings’s parents and congratulated his mother for naming him after the Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas. Lorene Jennings, who had been unaware of the college, changed the spelling to Waylon. Jennings later expressed in his autobiography, “I didn’t like Waylon. It sounded corny and hillbilly, but it’s been good to me, and I’m pretty well at peace with it right now.”

After working as a laborer on the Bitner farm, Jennings’s father moved the family to Littlefield and established a retail creamery.

Waylon Jennings Wife, Children

Jennings was married four times and had six children. He was first married to Maxine Caroll Lawrence in 1956 at age 18, with whom he had four children: Terry Vance Jennings (January 21, 1957 – January 25, 2019), Julie Rae Jennings (August 12, 1958 – October 3, 2014), Buddy Dean Jennings (born March 21, 1960), and Deana Jennings.

Jennings married again on December 10, 1962, to Lynne Jones, adopting a child, Tomi Lynne. They divorced in 1967. He next married Barbara Elizabeth Rood in 1967. He composed the song “This Time” about the trials and tribulations of his marriages and divorces.

He married for the fourth and final time in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 26, 1969, to Jessi Colter. Colter and Jennings had one son, Waylon Albright Jennings (aka Shooter Jennings, born May 19, 1979). Colter had one daughter, Jennifer, from her previous marriage to Duane Eddy. In the early 1980s, Colter and Jennings nearly divorced due to his addiction to drugs and other forms of substance abuse. However, they remained together until Jennings’s death in 2002.

In 1997, he gave up touring to be closer to his family. To set an example about the importance of education to his son Waylon Albright, Jennings earned a GED at age 52.

Waylon Jennings Early Career

When Jennings was eight, his mother taught him to play the guitar with the tune “Thirty Pieces of Silver”. Jennings used to practice with his relatives’ guitars, until his mother bought him a used Stella, and later ordered a Harmony Patrician. Early influences were Bob Wills, Floyd Tillman, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Carl Smith, and Elvis Presley.

At 12 years, Jennings auditioned for a spot on KVOW in Littlefield, Texas. Owner J.B. McShan, along with Emil Macha, recorded Jennings’s performance. McShan liked his style and hired him for a weekly 30-minute program. Following this successful introduction, Jennings formed his own band. He asked Macha to play bass for him and gathered other friends and acquaintances to form The Texas Longhorns. The style of the band, a mixture of Country and Western and Bluegrass music, was often not well received.

At age 16, after several disciplinary infractions, tenth-grader Jennings was convinced to drop out of high school by the superintendent. Upon leaving school, he worked for his father in the produce store, also taking temporary jobs. Jennings felt that music, his favorite activity, would turn into his career.

 The next year, Jennings and The Texas Longhorns recorded a demo of the songs “Stranger in My Home” and “There’ll Be a New Day” at KFYO radio in Lubbock. Meanwhile, he drove a truck for the Thomas Land Lumber Company, and a concrete truck for the Roberts Lumber Company.

Tired of the owner, and after a minor driving accident, Jennings quit. Jennings, and other local musicians, often performed at country radio station KDAV, and it is during this time he met Buddy Holly at a Lubbock restaurant. The two often met during local shows, and Jennings began to attend Holly’s performances on KDAV’s Sunday Party.

Jennings produced commercials and created jingles with the rest of the DJs. As their popularity increased, the DJs made public appearances. Jennings’s events included live performances. During one performance, Buddy’s father, L.O. Holley approached them with his son’s latest record and requested them to play it at the station. L.O. mentioned his son’s intention to start producing artists himself, and Corbin recommended Jennings. After returning from his England tour, Buddy Holly visited KLLL.

After returning from his England tour, Buddy Holly visited KLLL. Holly took Jennings as his first artist. He outfitted him with new clothes and worked with him to improve his image. On September 10, Jennings recorded the songs “Jole Blon” and “When Sin Stops (Love Begins)” with Holly and Tommy Allsup on guitars with saxophonist King Curtis. Holly then hired Jennings to play electric bass.

Winter Dance Party

The Winter Dance Party tour began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 23, 1959. The amount of travel created logistical problems, as the distance between venues had not been considered when scheduling each performance. Adding to the problem, the unheated tour buses twice broke down in freezing weather, with dire consequences. Holly’s drummer Carl Bunch suffered frostbite to his toes (while aboard the bus) and was hospitalized, so Holly made the decision to find another means of transportation.

Holly chartered a four-seat Beechcraft Bonanza airplane from Dwyer Flying Service in Mason City, Iowa, for himself, Jennings, and Tommy Allsup, to avoid the long bus trip to their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota.

Later, Holly learned that his bandmates had given up their seats on the plane and had chosen to take the bus rather than fly, friendly banter between Holly and Jennings ensued, and it would come back to haunt Jennings for decades to follow: Holly jokingly told Jennings, “Well, I hope your ol’ bus freezes up!” Jennings jokingly replied, “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes!” Less than an hour and a half later, shortly after 1:00 am on February 3, 1959 (later known as The Day the Music Died), Holly’s charter plane crashed at full throttle into a cornfield outside Mason City, instantly killing all on board. the reports from the Sky Corbin at KLLL confirmed that Holly died.

In the early 1960s, Jennings wrote and recorded “The Stage (Stars in Heaven)”, a tribute to Valens, the Big Bopper, and Holly, as well as Eddie Cochran, a young musician who died in a road accident a year after the plane crash. For decades afterward, Jennings repeatedly admitted that he felt responsible for the crash that killed Holly. This sense of guilt precipitated bouts of substance abuse through much of Jennings’s career.

Waylon Jennings Later Career

In 1961, Jennings signed a recording contract with Trend Records, and experienced moderate success with his single, “Another Blue Day”. His friend, Don Bowman, took demos of Jennings to Jerry Moss, who at the time was starting A&M Records with associate Herb Alpert. On July 9, 1963, Jennings signed a contract with A&M that granted him 5% of record sales.

At A&M, he recorded “Love Denied” backed with “Rave On”, and “Four Strong Winds” backed with “Just to Satisfy You”. He followed up by recording demos of “The Twelfth of Never”, “Kisses Sweeter than Wine”, and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”, and also produced the single “Sing the Girls a Song, Bill”, backed with “The Race Is On”. The singles were released between April and October 1964.

Waylon Jennings Death

Jennings’s health had been deteriorating for years before his death. After quitting cocaine, he ended his habit of smoking six packs of cigarettes daily in 1988. The same year, he underwent heart bypass surgery. By 2000, his diabetes worsened, and the pain reduced his mobility, forcing Jennings to end most touring. Later the same year, he underwent surgery to improve his leg circulation. In December 2001, his left foot was amputated at a hospital in Phoenix. On February 13, 2002, Jennings died in his sleep of diabetic complications at the age of 64, in Chandler, Arizona. He was buried in the City of Mesa Cemetery, in Mesa, Arizona. At the funeral ceremony, on February 15, Jessi Colter sang “Storms Never Last” for the attendees, who included Jennings’s close friends and fellow musicians.

Waylon Jennings Legacy

In October 2001, Jennings was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. In one final act of defiance, he did not attend the ceremony and opted instead to send son Buddy Dean Jennings. On July 6, 2006, Jennings was inducted to Guitar Center’s RockWalk in Hollywood, California. On June 20, 2007, Jennings was posthumously awarded the Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award by the Academy of Country Music.

Songs

Waylon Jennings Awards

• 1970 Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal w/ The Kimberlys for “MacArthur Park” The Recording Academy
• 1975 Male Vocalist of the Year Country Music Association
• 1976 Album of the Year with Jessi Colter, Willie Nelson and Tompall Glaser for “Wanted! The Outlaws” Country Music Association
• 1976 Vocal Duo of the Year with Willie Nelson Country Music Association
• 1976 Single of the Year with Willie Nelson for “Good-Hearted Woman” Country Music Association
• 1979 Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal with Willie Nelson for “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” The Recording Academy
• 1985 Single of the Year with the other members of The Highwaymen for “Highwayman” Academy of Country Music
• 1999 Texas Country Music Hall of Fame induction Texas Country Music Hall of Fame
• 2001 Country Music Hall of Fame induction Country Music Association
• 2006 Guitar Center’s RockWalk induction Guitar Center
• 2007 Cliffie Stone Pioneer Award Academy of Country Music
• 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award Nashville Songwriters’ Festival
• 2017 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time, Rank No. 7 Rolling Stone

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