Willie & Waylon – “From Outlaws to Good Guys”
Music City News
August 1995
by Lydia Dixon Harden
Together and alone, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson stand tall in the eyes of country music fans. They each stepped out of the mainstream of country music to put their own indelible brand to the genre — Waylon’s music with its walking bass and his growling voice; Willie with his unique phrasing and trademark guitar licks.
In 1970s, the two teamed together for a series of duets which fused their long-standing friendship. They urged people to “get back to the basics of love” and extolled the virtues of a good hearted woman. They have been tagged as outlaws, but in reality, they are also good hearted. Willie has raised more than $12 million for American farmers. Waylon has made adult literacy his cause. For all their efforts through the years, each earned an honor during this year’s TNN Music City News Country Awards.
Now Waylon and Willie will work again this summer with Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson as the HIghwaymen. The foursome released their third Highwayman collaboration in the past ten years.
Individually, Willie is making plans for another Farm Aid and has released a new album for Justice Records, “Just One Love,” and Rhino Records is releasing “A Classic & Unreleased Collection.” Waylon is still writing songs and working to follow-up his “Waymore’s blues Part II” album.
Music City News took time to catch up with these two busy artists during the TNN Music City News Country Awards.
Willie Nelson
‘I love Minnie Pearl to death,” says Willie about the woman for whom his award was named. “She is a wonderful person and we have been friends for many, many years. I was a big fan before I ever met her. But then through the years, we became great friends. This is a great award, and especially great because of Minnie Pearl.”
Willie was chosen for the honor due to his efforts with Farm Aid. “We are talking about doing another Farm Aid, maybe in September. I have heard Louisville mentioned a couple of times. We’ll see. I never thought we would have to do more than one,” he adds. “I figured that maybe once people realized, that something would be done. This is the tenth anniverary and things are worse now than they were, what with the environemental disasters like floods and those things. It’s pretty bad out there. The situation started out as one thing and now it has grown into another. Now farm aid is trying to help all those peole who are going through all those different disasters much at the same time as their farm problems. Now they have all these environmental problems.’
Willie Nelson has a global outlook when it comes to his music. He and his band recently returned from Europe. The trip covered 23 cities in 12 countries in a span of 25 days.
‘It was a whirlwind tour, but a good one,” he says. “There are a lot of fans over there. I have been several times and each time I go back. it seems to be growing a little bit more.”
Closer to home, Nelson has his own recording studio. One of the real benefits of that is he gets to hear what other musicians are up to. He was pleasantly surprised when he came home one day to find the members of his first band laying down tracks. Willie joined in and they recorded a whole bunch of material.
“The Offenders is the name of the group that I first put together,” he tells. “We went on the road and for some reason we decided to call ourselves the Offenders. Johnny Bush, who has gone on to have a lot of record sales and hits on his own, played drums for me back then. David Zettner played the bass and Jimmy Day played steel guitar. I came home a few weeks ago and those guys were in the studio just recording this song. We woujnd up doing a lot of the older songs and a couple of new things. I’m trying to sell it to somebody.”
That project will be put to the back burner now that the Highwaymen tour is under full swing. Does he think the Highwaymen concept would work with four other people?
“Would it work with any other configuration? I didn’t think it would work with us!” he laughs.
“It is one of those miracles again. Fortunately, we are not in control. Each time it comes together, it is another miracle because we all come in from so many different directions. But it is a good thing,” he states. “Whether it could happen again with anybody else, I am sure it could. There are four people around somewhere, I am sure, that they can get along a little while on the road. We get along amazingly well.
“It is a vacation for me. I stand over there three-quarters of the time and listen to these guys sing and listen to a great band and usually a full house. So I get to be entertianed. The rest of the time, I get to entertain. So I am having a big time. It is not work. All I have to do is show up.”