120 Crazy Sane transcript (Waylon Jennings)

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Sara: This is famous and Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity. This

Michael: person died 2002, age 64, born in Littlefield, Texas. He became a radio disc jockey at 14 and formed his own band.

Not long afterward, he played earthy music with a spirited hard edge. Oh, that's almost impossible.

Friend: I love that, but don't know. No clue. 2002,

Michael: you look so determined. I'm his resonant. Authoritative voice was also used to narrate the popular TV show, the Dukes of Hazard.

Friend: I'm of that generation. I can hear the voice.

I can hear it and I can kind of see the person. Yeah, that's interesting 'cause I remember that recording too. [00:01:00] Oh my

Michael: zero back to so far. Okay. In 19. 59. His career was nearly cut short by tragedy. Soon after it began, he was scheduled to fly on the light plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the JP Big Bopper Richardson.

He gave his seat on the plane to Richardson, who was ill and wanted to fly rather than travel by bus with those left behind.

Friend: That's a really good, and I've heard that before. And, um, all of useless concept and knowledge that I have is gone. Yeah, I know who that is, but I cannot remember his name for the life of me.

I know who it is too. I don't think there's a hard edge to John Denver. There doesn't feel, and I don't even know if he's dead,

Michael: not hard edge, John Denver, uh, but actually pretty close with his pal Willie Nelson. He performed duets like mamas. Don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Luke Inba and good hearted woman.

Friend: Oh, it's Waylon Jennings, isn't it? Waylon Jennings. Waylon Jennings. [00:02:00] Hell. Should have known it.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Waylon Jennings.

Friend: Ah.

Archival: It does seem to me that you had not only in your mind that you wanted to perform, but you knew how you wanted to perform and you were gonna do it your way. Where'd that come from?

That might have come from Grandpa Shipley too. Everything he did was against the grain, you know? And I'm always did that too. I never liked to be told what to do. I just didn't like to be told what to do.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne. And I'm Sarah Murphy. And on this show, we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

Waylon [00:03:00] Jens died 2002, age 64. I am so happy to have Sarah Murphy back on the show again. Sarah joined us for the episode on the Queen and Kobe Bryant, and now Waylon Jennings. I feel like we're, uh, covering some very interesting corners of pop culture. You're born and raised Tennessee, aren't you? Oh, yes.

Sara: And I am talking to you from Nashville, Tennessee today, so I'm a legit fan. I

Michael: think we both are, and actually, okay, so you and I became friends when we were living in the Bay Area. Do you feel like sometimes you have to justify or explain good country music to people who are not country music fans? I wanted to ask about this because I think that we're both Waylon Jenning fans, but I wanna make the case that even if you're not.

He's a figure worth understanding.

Sara: Yes. I think I have a history of country music apologetics on many levels, and I try not to do too much of the like, this is good, this is bad. I just think if you listen to the the Ken [00:04:00] Burns documentary on country music, you learn a lot about how it was an artificially fractured genre.

I think part of Waylon's story is how that fracturing doesn't really work for a lot of amazing music. Most of the stuff I like has more than one home, and most of the careers I like tend to like bounce around within the genre.

Michael: So that's really well said. I like the word fracturing a lot because what's funny to me about it is that while the song structure and maybe even some of the.

Imagery that surrounds a lot of country music, you know, has a lot of similarities. I personally have a very polarizing reaction to different types of country music. There are some I love and there's some that gets under my skin that I can't stand with the sort of same amplitude in the other direction.

Right? But it's all, it's all called country music. So I think the word fracturing is actually really helpful. So we're both fans. Let's get to it. All right. Category one, [00:05:00] grading the first line of their obituary. Waylon Jennings, who defined the outlaw movement in country music, died Wednesday after a long battle with diabetes related health problems.

He was 64. What was your initial reaction?

Sara: Anger. I just, oh, really? Rage. I just feel like for someone who had such a way with words and who lived a life that spanned so many experiences and who gave us. So much within the art form. I was really upset. So they mailed it in? Yeah, they did. Did, I mean they totally mail it in.

Did they? Did there There's

Michael: so much you could have said. The rest of the obituary does get to it. But as a first line. Yeah. Come

Sara: on. I know. You know. Yeah. And I feel like even like the died Wednesday after a long battle with diabetes related health problems should be saying, yeah, why did we have to bring up his diabetes?

Okay. So the man was a little bit intelligent. He like, he was on [00:06:00] like six different types of drugs, but it was the sugar that got him.

Michael: Despite having a legendary cocaine habit, the man ate too many Snickers bars. Yeah, no, I mean, actually did you read that as a bit of a dick? I did. It was

Sara: also like somebody really doesn't appreciate who this guy is, this overweight southerner who,

Michael: yeah. I mean, there is a little bit of like smugness in that diet.

That's so true. It like why that Yeah. Of all the things you could shoehorn at, and you can definitely

Sara: bury that way later. Like nobody's like, oh, how did he die? You know,

to be fair, it was, it was a protracted illness. He had like an amputation. It was, it was happening. But it's not that

Michael: first line story. No. Right. I mean, okay, now I'm feeling your reading. Let's let, let, let's, let's see if we can't, you know, give a little bit of grace here. I do like the one thing they say here defined the outlaw movement in country music.

He did define it right, that [00:07:00] he is a. Founding kind of figure in outlaw country and that they separated outlaw movement as if it's a movement, as if it's like a community organizing from country music, not outlaw country music. So I sort, I sort of actually liked that. Even there though, I had a bit of a reaction because Waylon himself would say, this was really a marketing thing.

Archival: Yeah,

Michael: right. Outlaw country music was very clever and effective marketing language to promote a certain flavor of country music. But. It has a little bit of political overtones that can gimme some pause. Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. I don't know if it communicates exactly why I love it. Outlaw makes it seem like it's about story, not about a certain aesthetic.

I don't know. I mean, yeah. Does the language around this shove genre of country music give you pause?

Sara: Yeah. I actually thought outlaw movement was a little wrong. I mean, I think the idea was that they were doing something different. They were making music their way. They built friendships [00:08:00] on that, and it's

Michael: rebellious,

Sara: and I

Michael: think that's what the

Sara: Outlaw Connects.

Yeah. But Connects. But movement does feel, I mean, the only movement was to have some outdoor festivals, you know? Like it was Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. You're right. It's not, it's not like it was a political movement. Yeah. And it makes it read that way. Yeah. Okay. You know what? I was trying to be graceful. I think I completely.

Agree. Yeah. Probably take back what I said a minute ago, and

Sara: I, I do, I read some other first lines when I look at this and there were, there were some other first lines that were able to reference Maverick Outlaw, his monumental success. Oh, you mean other first lines of Waylon? Yeah. Of Waylon's obituaries and just kind of, and they were able, some of them even referenced Buddy Holly, like they were just able to do a lot more with the first line.

Yeah. And so I,

Michael: there was an opportunity there for that. Right. That he's actually kind of a fascinating folk figure and an important part of American pop culture. This is a mail it in. This is really a sophomore [00:09:00] effort,

Sara: and it's a little bit, I don't know, it reads like a cautionary tale. Like he was an outlaw and he had a long battle with diabetes, you know, and I'm just like, yeah, I don't know.

You know what, I, I am rageful too. Okay. I'm ready

Michael: to give my score. Let's hear your rage. You talked me down.

Sara: Okay, so I have this problem where I've given. Like an almost perfect store and a four for the queen. Yeah. Yeah. And the problem is this is worse than the queens. So I went with a three,

Michael: I'm going two.

Okay. You talked me down. Okay. Yeah, I'm going two. I'm sorry. Like one of the things I want in the first line of an obituary is a hint at story intrigue. Honoring a somebody and like the opportunity to write like a great line. Yeah. This is such a fumble to me. Like the more we talked about it, great outlaw country music.

If you didn't have in there, that would be like negative numbers. Yeah. Right. Of course you're gonna say outlaw country, it was songwriter. Especially like they wrote the lines for you listen to some music, you know? Right, exactly. But I, I also really take your point that [00:10:00] there feels like an almost insult here.

Yeah. Like the cautionary tale. Sure. But I think that there's actually. A lot of redemption in his life too. His story is not a cautionary tale. Yes. Yeah. So even that feels wrong in its implications. I agree. So I agree. Yeah. I two and a three. All right. Two to three. Two. Better. Love our

Sara: boy. Love our man.

Michael: Well, that's a good segue. Category two, five things I Love about You here, Sarah and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how he lived. What do you got for number one, Sarah?

Sara: So I started with. Outlaw, and by outlaw I mean somebody who operates outside of a definition.

He did operate outside of some norms within Nashville. He made a point of building his career actually out west after having been to Nashville. A lot of that he learned from Buddy Holly. I mean, he would say things like these producers thought that the records were there.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, [00:11:00] when he gets to Nashville, he encounters a lot of convention and a kind of system, right, and a process.

Archival: They didn't want you to have ideas. They wanted you to come in and do it. Like what was, they had a thing called the Nashville Sound, and me and the Nashville sound was like oil and water. It just didn't mix. There was no edge to that music. It was one thing and everybody recorded and it all sounded the same.

And it was the thing that worked. I didn't wanna destroy that, but I didn't want to do that.

Sara: I mean, he gets signed by RCA, that's how he meets Willie. So in some ways, like they find each other and they're like, we have an opportunity here. How are we gonna stay ourselves? That friendship and then he, Johnny Cash and Chris Christofferson, like every single one of 'em had like a really hard fight with drugs and a lot of things going on in their lives, but they were.

Honest, you know, they were, uh, three chords in the truth writers. Yeah. And I love that that was a relationship that was able to last. And it was not [00:12:00] without conflict. I mean, uh, Willie will say they were like an old married couple. They fought about everything.

Michael: So are, wait a sec, let me, just to clarify, are you talking about his friendships or are you talking about his relationship with Nashville in the music industry, or both?

Sara: I'm talking about both. I think that was what was in the friendships. The friendships. He was really able to gather. Or people who were wanting to do it a little bit differently.

Michael: Yeah, no, it is, it is all of one piece that there is this Nashville establishment that makes a certain kind of music, and there are artists who are country music artists, but who wanna rebel and create and work outside that system.

That is the outlaw country crowd. The, the figures you named. Yeah. It's interesting, I think of him as such a Texas figure. Mm-hmm. And I assumed that he moved back to Texas and I think he found himself and his style in Texas, and certainly in collaborations with Willie. But he, he was very much a Nashville figure too.

Oh yeah. I mean, he lived there. His entire adult life for the most part.

Sara: Well, all that Arizona time too, so, yeah. [00:13:00] Well, yeah. So he is, and that's where like, um, so Jesse's from there, right? So that's where they end up. I think that was what was interesting. And he used to give advice, like, make Nashville come to you.

Don't go to Nashville. Like Willie met him out there, you know, like that. Johnny met him out there. Like it was, it was kind of an interesting dynamic that he was able to get this steady job at $400 a week. And Willie said, don't leave. And he's like, he didn't listen to me. He came to Nashville anyway.

Michael: Well, but I love your analysis and dissection about law, because what I hear in that is artistic, creative risk taking. Mm-hmm.

Archival: You

Michael: know, and you're not an artist unless you're. Trying something different and risky and outside of established norms and pathway to rich and fed

Sara: and and mean, they sang each other's songs.

It was like there was a shared creativity that was really amazing. A hundred percent.

Michael: All right, I'll give you my number two. I mean, the legend is real. Like he has legendary stories. You know, people probably know the Buddy Holly [00:14:00] story, but let's just go ahead and tell it because, so Waylon Jennings from Littlefield Texas.

By the way, have you ever been to Littlefield? I have not. Busted. Oh my God. Like meth and nothing and like it is such a bummer. Um, you know, not to thank much feel friends of the show. Look, we're not, look PSA find another route on your road trip. It, it's West Texas, but it's sort of northwest, so it's kind of panhandle area.

Yeah. Not too far from Lubbock. So Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings get connected very early on in Waylon Jennings's career. Buddy Holly was actually a fan and a champion. Right. And they're on the road together for about eight years. And the story is the night of the fateful airplane. The day the music died,

Archival: I'd been flying all over West Texas.

And, uh, with Buddy, he said, we got a plane tonight. And I said, great. But then the big bopper who had had the flu, he come to me and he said, you know, he said, I'm just sick. I've gotta get some rest. So I told him, I said, it's [00:15:00] okay with me if it's okay with Buddy. I remember buddy sitting there with the door and he's laughing and he says, you're not going with us.

Huh? And he said, well, I hope your old bus freezes up. And then I said to him, I said, yeah, well I hope your old plane crashes. You know? So that took me a long time to get over that.

Michael: I mean, so first of all. One of the great one ifs in music history in a way that he was on a plane that was faded to crash.

But then there's like so many more Waylon Jennings stories. He and Johnny Cash were roommates. They were both pill popping like crazy and hiding drugs all over their apartment. Apparently they didn't do drugs together, but like stashed pills all over the place. I loved that,

Sara: that they were like keeping it from each other as though the other didn't know.

They were like, we never done 'em together. We never done them together. Well, just way

Michael: Waylon and Johnny both tweaking and like kind of looking at each other as scans while Johnny's making eggs and waylon's cleaning the dishes. And then the drug bust story where the Feds raid a session where Waylon's recording and [00:16:00] his engineer turns on the microphone so Waylon can hear him in the next room and realizes that the Feds are outside.

He manages to hide the drugs so that the. Feds don't find it, and then there's an opportunity later to flush it down the toilet. There's a story about him blowing up a barn. When did you come across this one? Yes. He was on the road and like somebody stiffed him and he had some, I don't know why, but he had dynamite in his car.

Yeah. He was like, let's get outta here. Billy Joe Schafer. Yeah. His songwriting partners like, yeah. Wayland blew up the backside of the barn. I don't think anybody got hurt.

Archival: We got up the highway about, oh, about a quarter of a mile and I heard the doggone this explosion and I looked back and, and, and the back end of that whole place was blowed up.

And I said, God, Waylon, did you hear that? He said, I didn't hear a thing. And uh, and I, we went on down the road ways and he said, come here Billy, I wanna show you something. And down in there was, it was dynamite.

Michael: Like unbelievable [00:17:00] stories from the road. Yeah. And Waylon's kind of, in some ways I feel like my guy, like I love Willie Nelson.

I love Johnny Cash, but I've always felt a kind of like, man, if there's anybody who I want to run a shotgun with on the road, it's Waylon Jennings. The legend is real. So that's my thing. Number two, it's a really good

Sara: one. So what do you got for number three? My number three is he was defined by what he is not, but he was loved for who he was.

So he was really able to put together a sound that he gave Buddy Holly a lot of credit for. So he said that Buddy was what he called an upper, and he learned from him. Like rhythms and grooves, you know, so not to keep a level tempo, which is kind of how like the Nashville sound was working at that moment.

And then he learned how to kind of, what he called live in the pocket so you get a rhythm and you don't let it stop. So like there was fluctuation and steadiness in his songs, but it, there was, for lack of a better word, a little brightness even [00:18:00] when talking about something dark. And he learned not to compromise his music.

He said, don't let him tell you what to do. And then he learned to understand that what was different about his sound is what was good then.

Michael: Yeah. You know, it's funny, I, I had something very similar. I wrote down two, maybe three chords. There's not a lot of complexity in a lot of these songs. I've told this story before I think, but I learned how to play guitar when I was 35, so pretty late in life.

First I learned G and then C and then D. And when I realized how many of the Waylon Jennings songs are, are two or three of those courts, I'm like, I can play all these. It's amazing. I had this friend in college, Lewis, and I remember talking to him about fishing one time. He was a big time fisherman, and I'm like, you're really into fishing.

He's like, fishing's like. The blues man. It's like in a, it is like, it's kinda like country music too, that the mechanics are very, very simple. What's kind of incredible is how much creativity you can find within a very, very simple [00:19:00] structure. There's a simplicity. What's sort of incredible is how much opportunity exists within that simplicity.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I feel like that's, that's kind of what I, I hear in your thing. Number three. Absolutely. Okay. Well, from my thing number four, I wrote manned up. I think that there's a certain kind of masculinity that we can learn from in Waylon Jennings, and where I see it the most is in his willingness to be accountable.

Mm-hmm. And this comes up when he sobers up. So he never goes to like a treatment center or does any 12 steps or anything like that, you know, and he's got an insane cocaine habit. He's claiming something like $1,500 a day with the amount of Coke he's blowing through. So he basically locks himself in a ranch house in Arizona and he tells Jesse, his wife, you know, I'm probably gonna come out, uh, and want.

Want some coke, but I'll take a little break here. This is shortly after his, his son Shooter's been born and he has this realization, you know, you're welcome to [00:20:00] destroy your own life, Waylon, but it's not okay to ruin other people's lives. Yeah. And I do think that it can be dangerous for addicts and alcoholics to put that responsibility on somebody else and to say, I'm sobering up for my wife or for my kid.

Mm-hmm. But in his case, I hear him holding himself accountable, that he's willing to say, I'm at fault here and I'm trying to hold myself to a higher standard.

Archival: I had no intention of quitting until I saw what I was doing to my wife and, and everybody that, that cared about me. When I sobered up, I was just gonna quit for a month, you know?

And about three weeks after all the pain and the shakes and all this stuff, I got to looking around me and I saw my wife, who's a beautiful lady, but she looked like she was 10 years older because of the stress and strain of living with me.

Michael: So I

Archival: quit.

Michael: And I do see redemption in that, in his story. So that's my thing.

Number four,

Sara: it's interesting you mentioned shooter. I listened to his autobiography 'cause [00:21:00] I love his voice. And so yeah, shooter Germans is great. The affection with which he talked about the birth of shooter was just so different. It was the only, the only birth he was there for. You know, like it's the only birth he was there for in the hospital.

And I think you hear him in his interviews talking with so much regret about what he put his other children through in terms of shuttling them between places and not particularly with his first wife not having had a, a good relationship with the mother of his first four kids. And yeah. And we'll get to that one a bit.

Yeah, we'll get to that later. Yeah. But I just think that there was this thing about shooter that, that. I think crystallized some things for him. He is like, okay, if Jesse is gonna be the love in my life, who we know, even from Jesse talking later in life, she's like, I, I was looking the other way and I shouldn't have looked the other way.

You know, like there, yeah. So it's not as though he was fully faithful to her, but I think there was a difference in that relationship. He did see that as like a, something that could make [00:22:00] it to the end. And Jessie said, I love this. She's like, I don't think anybody could have held. Waylon's attention. I just think I had it at the end.

Michael: Well, but I mean, I, I want to tie this in a famous and gravy way into a question about masculinity. I do think of Famous and Gravy sometimes as a project in positive masculinity. And for me, I hadn't really considered it the quality of accountability before and, and this and that really, I think is, is what I'm really trying to get at most with what it means to, to man up.

Sara: Oh yeah. Well, when he talks about like understanding how much money he was spending on drugs and like how his finances were a complete disaster. Disaster.

Archival: One day I was doing 'em and the next day I wasn't. And that's the way it's been one of my great accomplishments in life. It really was. The doctors had to two or 3 million to one that anyone could do it like that.

See, I was doing $1,500 a day. It's wasn't my habit, it was costing me, Ooh, I [00:23:00] wish y'all had that money back.

Sara: I thought that was actually one of the better accountability moments. And he was like, and the problem was me. 'cause they would come to me and I'd say, go figure it out. You know? So he knew that he was like being irresponsible.

Yeah. Not attentive enough. Like just not on it. Alright. What do you got for thing number five? So I just didn't understand the poverty from which he came.

Michael: Poor, poor, poor. This is Littlefield, man. Yeah, yeah. This is, I mean,

Sara: but this is picking cotton without shoes on with your family. Yeah. And the idea that he was.

Able to do that and then still find a guitar to play. And then his mom ultimately gets him his own. And then he has a radio show at 14. He has a half hour radio spot at 14, and it's really because of the radio gigs that he meets Buddy Holly. And things start happening and he, he drops out of high school and 10th grade and he does end up [00:24:00] taking his GED when shooter's about 10.

You know, he

Michael: gets Did you ever understand why he got his GED? I could not for the life of me, figure out why he would put himself through that. I,

Sara: I heard his speech. Yeah, he did a big discussion. He, like, there was a big presentation in Kentucky with the governor and the first lady, and he said that it was because he was always afraid Shooter was gonna ask him.

How far he got in school and he didn't want to say that he hadn't finished high school. But then he said, and then shooter never did ask and I decided to make this commitment to take the test and then I had to learn fractions and shooter was about 10. So shooter taught me fractions,

so, oh my God. So yeah, in terms of like humility, it was kind of interesting.

Michael: Yeah. Humility and accountability go hand in hand. I think your point number four and my point number five are really paired. I mean, he does talk a lot about how. He and Johnny Cash have very similar stories. Johnny Cash also grew up in that level of poverty, literally dirt floor [00:25:00] homes.

Sara: Oh yeah. But also like, I think if you look at the combination of having had that many of your friends die when you were 21 and knowing that you could have would've, should have been on that plane and then having come from that type of destitution and know that you could survive it, it kind of makes his fearlessness make a lot more sense.

I mean, like what can touch me? Like, you know, like I, yeah. You know.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. No, it's true. I mean, there is, there is, uh, and I mean he talks about with his cocaine ha habit, I must have had the constitution of 15 men, like nobody could put the kind of

Archival: drugs

Michael: into their body that I could handle. Awesome. All right, well, so let's recap.

So number one, you said, I said the outlaws and the actual friendships of the highwaymen. Number two, I said the legend is real legendary stories. Number three, you said. He was

Sara: defined by what he is not but loved for who he was and that a lot of that was kind of built on what he learned from Buddy Holly.

Michael: Number four, [00:26:00] manned up willingness to be accountable to himself. And number five,

Sara: the level of poverty from which he came. Like his ability to rise was really impressive.

Michael: Alright, awesome list. Let's take a break.

Okay, category three, one love. In this category, Sarah and I will each choose one word or phrase that characterizes Waylon Jennings loving relationships. First, we will review what we know about the marriages and the kids. So for marriages, marriage number one to Maxine, 1956 to 1962. Waylon was 19, divorced at 25.

They had four children, then he got married to Lynn from 1962 to 1967. So Wayland was 25, divorced at 31, adopted daughter. Then there was Barbara, 1967 and 1968. This one sounded like a total disaster. Was married at 30, divorced at 31. And then finally Jesse Coulter from 1969 to 2002 and into his death. So 31, when Jesse and Wayland got together, they had one child [00:27:00] shooter Jennings, uh, who is still very much a figure in the.

Country music scene. Okay. Sarah, what'd you have for one? Love? I love that you're laughing. Wayland's such a like, I don't know. He is such a scoundrel. There were just

Sara: so many contenders that was like the part that really, 'cause I mean, first of all, you just say good-hearted women in love with a good time, man.

And then you're like, there are some times those ladies weren't so goodhearted. Yeah. And then,

Michael: um, lonesome ornery in me, like there's so many Waylon songs that were like, it, it doesn't take much to deduce where these songs are coming from. Waylon like,

Sara: yeah. Yeah. But I think that the way he was able to live.

His life was to keep moving on. And I think he actually has a song he wrote about his ex-wives called Right For the Time.

Michael: Yeah. So is that your word or phrase right? For the time? Yeah, that is, that is is

Sara: that, is it? It is Right for the time. And the full phrase, the chorus is, but she was right for the time.

She was right [00:28:00] for the time, but time has a way of moving on.

Michael: Okay. Okay. I mean that's, but let's. Dissect that a little bit. I mean, it's funny, I've been having a lot of calls with Famous and Gravy listeners, and when they go back into the back catalog, the way I talk about marriage and monogamy, they're like, Michael, you need to, like, some of us don't get paired off and, and I think you're making this a little too important, uh, right.

For the time. I mean, is that good? And maybe even, okay, we have a kind of fixation with happily ever After and Partners for Life. But you know, what if we went about our adult lives and said, these relationships are right for the time, and it's not necessarily about making a lifelong commitment. I don't know.

Waylon Jennings does end up having a lasting relationship with Jesse, so I don't wanna make too much of this, but like, what's the famous Eng Gravy message on Right. For the time, Sarah?

Sara: Well, I think the famous engraving message is the idea that, you can think of this in your own rubric, because I can't decide for the listeners what [00:29:00] they like value, but I do.

Well,

Michael: I'm asking for you. For

Sara: me. Okay. I do not wanna be married four times. I, lemme start, lemme start with this. I do, I do not, I do not wanna be paying child support to that many different people. I do not. Oh, look,

Michael: I'm not, you're right. I'm not advocating this, but is there, is there something to that philosophy or is it more an admission of the truth?

Is it more how he makes sense of his own history with women, you know? Yeah. I think he, rather than a, a, a, a way to live.

Sara: Yeah. So someone I love very much. My belated brother used to say that if he wrote a book about his life, he would. Name the chapters after the women he loved, and I said that I would really appreciate it as would his editors, if he could cut back on the overlap between the chapters.

Yeah. And I think, I think that was really, that's the [00:30:00] part of Waylon's story that I think is a little too uncomfortable. I mean, so his firstborn sign is Terry who ends up on the road with him and knows him as an adult. And Terry is surprised on stage when he announces that Jesse is pregnant with shooter.

You know? So like, you know, so they. There is this other thing and, and he used to talk about Waylon having like three or four hotel rooms, one for Jesse, one for whatever girl he was hooking up with that night. One for like where his buddies were doing drugs and one where he could sleep, you know? So I just think, well, I, right.

I mean, we know

Michael: what kind of figure he really was. He is a star on the road who is hooking up a lot and not being faithful in most of his relationships, and we could deduce that. I guess what I'm trying to get at is I do think that part of the project of being an adult is discovering who am I? And this idea that you need to learn to love yourself before you can love others.

Feels like a truism. And we discover ourselves inside relationships sometimes. But then also, I mean the [00:31:00] whole dance, if you are really trying to have a lasting pairing or a marriage, is to do that in a way that allows that ongoing discovery with boundaries. But what to make of this, I don't know. Waylon's a straight dog essentially, you know?

But I also

Sara: think that, yeah, I think, I think Waylon didn't know how, like what I said is, there were so many ways to go with this. And I think it's hard when there are kids to look back and say, oh, that relationship should have never happened because you're like wishing away people. Yeah. You know? So I don't wanna wish away people.

I think that, um, he had different relationships with all of his kids, but I think. There was definitely love there and I do see him working with that and grappling with it. But there's also a line in his autobiography where he says like, he went through X Wives, like Grant went through Richmond. Yeah. And so and so.

Right. For the time is like a much more ameliorated version of that. I wish that he had been able to be single for a minute or two [00:32:00] between each of these. No relationships. No, but he was, he was Tarzan like swinging from rope to rope. So

Michael: I mean, I, I remember Ahmet saying in the Kenny Rogers episode that Kenny Rogers is chain smoking marriages.

This is what this looks like. He's chain smoking marriages.

Sara: That is a great, that is such an ome line. That is perfect. Yeah. That's great. That's.

Michael: Well, all right. I had something pretty similar. Okay. Every time I get ready for a famous and gravy episode, one of the first things I'll do is start reading Wikipedia and following links.

There was a line that came up in Wikipedia, unsighted, even though it's quoted that said he had a Spanky twang guitar style, and the term Spanky twang just cracked me up. I think that's a funny phrase. So that's my word, word or phrase. I don't know what it means. I kind of know what it means. I, I saw that phrase and I thought of the opening riff in Lonesome Ornery and mean.

I started thinking a [00:33:00] little bit about Luther Perkins, who played in Johnny Cash's band, and Luther Perkins is really the guy who creates the sound that we're so familiar with in Johnny Cash songs. And whenever he was asked about his guitar playing style, he had a line of like, everybody's looking for. A certain kind of rhythm and I found it.

Archival: Mm. Um,

Michael: I think that that's kind of what Spanky Twang is with Waylon Jennings, that he was looking for a certain kind of fit. And I do think that for all of the tumult and everything he's putting Jesse through, I do see a durable, loving, understanding marriage. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. That once he kinda locks in on her.

I mean, they are. Partners, and it does look like a marriage that I'll never understand 'cause it exists within a certain subsection of the entertainment industry, but it looks like love to me.

Sara: Yeah, absolutely.

Michael: All right. Category four net worth. In this category, Sarah and I will each write down our numbers ahead of time, and then we'll talk a little bit about our reasoning.

We'll then look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest. And finally, we will place Waylon Jennings on the famous and [00:34:00] gravy net worth leaderboard. Okay. I went the route of comps here. So it comes up in his story a lot that he mismanaged his finances. Yeah. Yeah, right. And so what I was trying to anchor was like, okay, he sobers up in the mid eighties.

He act absolutely has some success after that. Although I think that real heyday of Wayland Jennings music is the seventies and is the outlaw country time.

Sara: But he doesn't even get his licensing in order until. Like he gets the IRS guy in,

Michael: but you know, there's the highway men. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think was a successful super group.

But then he dies a fairly young age and there's, you know, 64, but you know, it, it, the last few years sound like there was a lot of hanging off. Mm-hmm. So I thought about that, ups and downs of that. His very, very expensive cocaine habit. And then I looked at a couple of comps. So John Prime was at 10 million.

Johnny Cash was at 60. Joe Jeff Walker landed at 3 million. Those were the factors I considered [00:35:00] as I was thinking this through,

Sara: I was thinking about like the licensing coming on board in the eighties, the fact that he had multiple revenue strings. 'cause he did movies and he had the Dukes of Hazard stuff, which went into syndication and the song, it was his biggest hit ultimately.

'cause it just, you know, it got played so much. So, yeah. Yeah. So that was, that was really where I was trying to think is like, would he have had more money than Johnny Cash or less? And I think he would have to have, yeah. So, and that, that was really where I was.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, the thing with Johnny Cash landed at 60 million.

So much of that is he had this fourth quarter run with Rick Rubin. Yeah. And Waylon's life was cut short in a way that he might have had a similar journey.

Sara: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. But, all right, well let's go ahead and reveal,

Sara: okay. So Michael Osborne. Wrote down $12 million. Sarah

Michael: Murphy wrote down $20 million. All right, so the actual net worth number for Waylon Jennings is $2 million is what I got.

Oh, wow. Okay. I had thought about going lower. Damn, [00:36:00] 2 million. That's bummer. Yeah, that is a bummer. I gotta say, I'm surprised at that. That does put him, uh, pretty low on the famous eng gravy. Net worth leaderboard, but let's go ahead and place him. So also, this is a great category. It's amazing how many Texans are in here.

Uh, also on at the $2 million mark, this is the, the, the last percentile. There's only a couple of figures below the $2 million mark on the famous eng gravy net worth leaderboard. Also at with $2 million is Larry McMurtry Biz Markie, and then Bushwick Bill. So Waylon, Larry Biz Markie and Bushwick bill are at the $2 million net worth dinner table in the afternoon.

Sara: You would be so happy at that table.

Michael: I actually think that there's some truth to that. I actually think that like Bushwick Bill and Waylon Jennings have lots to talk about. Mm-hmm. And Larry McMurtry's there. All right. Well, damn, Waylon, I think, I think a lot. I mean, look. You only get so much money in this life.

If you wind up spending [00:37:00] a lot of it on cocaine, then that's what happens. That's the, you've gotta let, okay,

Sara: we'll let him be a cautionary tale for that. Do not spend all your money on cocaine.

Michael: But what's really, it's not so much that like I want more money for him. What frustrates me is that I think that this net worth number could be misread as, oh, he's not that important of a figure.

And I think that he did change country music, and I do think that he is an essential figure in entertainment history overall. Mm-hmm. And so. I just don't want this to be misread. Okay. Category five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski. Urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers.

Michael: Yes. And proud.

We are,

Archival: of all

Michael: of them in this category, we each choose a trophy, an award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person. What did you go with?

Sara: It hasn't come up yet, so I'm gonna actually change the direction. So I did not understand the poverty from which he came.

I did not understand the heights to which he rose. He [00:38:00] is the holder of the first country music platinum album. Yeah. That is a really big deal.

Archival: I didn't realize this until we really got into this that, that this album, you see on the screen was the first country album to ever go platinum. Mm-hmm. And, and interestingly enough, a lot of it had been recorded years prior to its release, hadn't it?

Some of it was 10 years old. You know, and, uh, I, uh, you know, some of it was as it was too, you know,

Sara: and he idolized Hank Williams. And Hank Williams Jr. Is on tape saying that he was the Hank Williams of his time, and that people failed to recognize that he was the Garth Brooks of his time. He really was that big when he was big.

And I don't want that to be a surprise, but it, it is a surprise. And so like the, and he said it mattered to him, like there wasn't a lot he would admit. In terms of accolades mattering to him. [00:39:00] But he said he did keep those albums up. You know, like he had his, his gold records, his platinum records. And to be able to maintain like his sound within country music and to be able to succeed in the genre at that, in that way, I think is really amazing.

So he took it, he, he became what he idolized and he, you know, did it better than anybody had been able to do it.

Michael: I totally agree. I'm really glad you decided to use this as your lebowski to like these guy's more important than you realized. Yeah. And then

Sara: I'm gonna take it one step farther. So the other side of this coin is, and this is something that I almost put in five things I love about You, is like he looks at Hank Williams.

He looks at Betty Holly, he carries that forward. He advances country music and then he is not somebody who has to fight for his status when a new generation comes on. So when Travis Trit is like, yeah, ruling the radio, he has a song [00:40:00] called Put Some Drive in Your Country that references Waylon. So that is like a, you know, like a Waylon Jennings.

I know Mage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he got hit by the radio stations 'cause he'd had like three back to back. Really Like country radio, like Nashville aggrandizing hits. And then he comes out with a song about like how he wants to change country music and do it in the way that Waylon did. And he starts getting a lot of flack for it.

And Waylon kind of gives him the messages that he got from Buddy Holly and is like, what's different about you is good. Keep doing what you're doing. Like they're gonna have to come to you because you're like too good at it. And he said he thought Travis Trip was the best of his time when he came out.

Yeah. And he is able to. You know, help somebody out who's having some of the same struggles with the industry that he was having. And so,

Michael: yeah, it's a great point, Sarah. There comes a point in anybody's career if they've had success, where they've gotta hand it over to the next generation. And you see that with him.

Mm-hmm. And that's a, and that's [00:41:00] what the Travis Tri example gets at. Okay. So for My Little Lebowski, I'm going with a moment in a movie called Follow That Bird, which was a feature film featuring characters from Sesame Street, including Big Bird. There's a part of the story where Big Bird has lost his way and he winds up on a ranch, and Waylon Jennings owns this farm and the two of 'em go on a little road trip.

Archival: Well, what can I do for you, big fella? Well, do you have room for just one more? I don't take no riders. This here's a Turkey truck. But my friend Oscar always says that I'm a Big Turkey.

Well, I don't guess I can argue with that. Pop in

Michael: to see Waylon Jennings next to Big Bird. I don't know what to make of that, because way Waylon Jennings is such a sort of gruff, rebellious character, but there's something like also wholesome and heartwarming about Waylon and Big Bird on a [00:42:00] road trip and the song in Bad, I, I was kind of into it.

Big Bird and Waylon Jennings in 1985,

Archival: I set Big Bird on Fire. What I did, yeah, I smoked all the time in those days. He's a great guy. I mean like, but he was sitting there and we, and all of a sudden we see this smoke. Those things cost three bucks a piece. The feathers. Oh, really? Yeah. It's pretty expensive.

How many did he lose in the fire? I don't know. We didn't talk about that.

Sara: I mean, it's the same thing. He really was that much in the pop culture that you could throw him into a Muppet's movie and everybody would be like, oh my, is that, is that,

Michael: you know, is that, uh, exactly. Mm-hmm. And I think that sort of speaks to your previous point of we've forgotten his stature.

Yeah. A little bit. Right. And he's a figure really worth remembering. All right, let's take another break.

Okay. Category six words to live by. In this category, we will choose a quote. These are either [00:43:00] words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them. What did you go with?

Sara: I did go with a lyric, I think. So shooter at his funeral sang. I've always been crazy and I do think that like his, which

Michael: if people dunno that song, I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane.

Yeah.

Sara: Nobody knows if it's something to bless or to blame. Yeah. So far I ain't found a rhyme or a reason to change. I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane. And it has. Yeah. Versus about like various parts of his life. But I just do see music as having been what allowed him to keep going and.

Very difficult times, like when he calls Buddy Holly and Upper, I mean, then after spends his life addicted to uppers, you know, you Yeah. Or a good chunk of his life. Yeah. Yeah. For a big amount. Yeah. It, it, um, you do see him needing something that he lost. Mm-hmm. And like trying to be. Oh, resilient enough to keep moving is not [00:44:00] easy.

And, and the way that he was living his life, like it was a very high risk existence. Yeah. And I just think in the same way you see somebody building his passion, this was his survival mechanism. Yeah. Like this was, yeah. This was how he coped with how life came to him. And I think it was why he was so believable.

Like he did, like you look at him in his early career, he's in like a tuxedo and smooth back hair. Like the first picture of he and Willie out in Arizona, you're like, who's like total like

Michael: rockabilly look. Yeah. Yeah. And even that famous picture of him and Buddy Holly in that New York. Terminal in the photo booth.

Yeah. I mean he, he totally looks like belongs in the fifties and back to the future or something. Yeah,

Sara: yeah. Like, yeah, exactly. Like whose debutante ball is he attending tonight? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, in the end he is like, he could barely, I mean, maybe he couldn't afford sleeves if he only had $2 million, but he was, it was just a very different vibe altogether.

Michael: I love that, Sarah, because I actually do think it's something that's been coming up for me a lot [00:45:00] in my life. This is another famous and gravy point, is I think we all need a creative outlet. That was something I feel like I heard at a young age. Yeah. Somebody said it's good to have a creative outlet. As the older I get, the more I realized that's not just about a hobby or how to spend your time.

That is a mechanism. Whatever your creative outlet is for getting in touch with your soul, there's some level of that that is a part of you that is looking for a way out, and that is a creative spirit that exists in all of us. I think on Famous and Gravy, we look at a lot of people who have had creative journeys.

Sometimes that's wayward and sometimes that's not. But with Waylon Jennings, that impulse to use music as a way of keeping in touch with his soul exists for his entire life, and it's very well encapsulated in that. Words to live by that you had in that song and what Shooter had to say.

Sara: Yeah, and I think for Famous and Gravy, not just as a listener, but even as a co-host, I think part of why you found friends who are like, [00:46:00] so happy to join you in this.

Like, so something like what the Outlaws are doing is like, I have a day job, but I, I do wanna think about things I like. And so we can look at these lives and say, I mean, if you were gonna make like Venn diagrams of my interests, we've already hit England. We've already hit basketball. Well, now we've hit country music like we're gonna hit Southern literature soon.

You know, like these are like the parts of me that I don't otherwise get to prioritize, you know? And so Yeah, and, and talk out, right? Yeah, yeah. And, and

Michael: make sense of, yeah. And like it,

Sara: I mean, I started a brand new job and I was still like submitting a conflict of interest request. 'cause I was like, I wanna do this, but please, is there a way to do I need to be on this podcast?

I mean, what I do every day is so far from a dead celebrity podcast. It's, uh, it's amazing. Yeah. But it is this, it is a creative outlet.

Michael: I'm so glad to hear you say that. Yeah. This is what I mean. This is. Why I have been asking you to come on the show, and I'm really glad that this show has found you at this stage of your career [00:47:00] or life.

Yeah, and that's exactly the point I'm making. All right. Well, let me give you my worst live by, there's a 1988 Spin Magazine interview that is probably my favorite interview with Waylon Jennings. There is a moment where the interviewer says, I have a Willie Nelson for President bumper sticker, and Waylon Jennings says, you do burn that thing.

If there's any, if there's anything you don't want, Hoss, it's Willie Nelson to be president. I mean, you don't even want him to be secretary of. You don't want him to be a dog catcher. I love that. All right. Towards the end of the interview, the interviewer ask him, what would you. Like to be remembered for.

He says that a person can blow it, can make it, and blow it, and hit bottom doing drugs and come back and be able to survive that and to do something worthwhile. This is his story. There is one of redemption. He does hit a bottom. He does blow out all his cash. He should have had more than 2 million at the end of it, but that he still is finding meaning and purpose for the duration of his career.

There's something that encapsulates what I want people to hear in the Waylon Jennings story in that quote, and, and [00:48:00] I, what do you wanna be remembered for? Well, here you go, Waylon. You know? Yeah. Alright, let's move on. Category seven, man In the Mirror. This category asks a fairly simple question, did this person like their reflection?

Yes or no? This is not a question of beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. Do you know who Michael Madson was? Played? Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs. Oh, okay. Yeah. He's got a little bit of like, the way he'll kind of like squint his eyes, you know, with kinda like cool guy squint eyes.

Mm-hmm. Um, Waylon Jennings has that look too. If you watch some interviews, he kind of like blinks at you and he's, he's staring you down in, in a Mr. Blonde kind of way. Anyway, how did you think through Man In the Mirror?

Sara: I think absolutely he does. I think, um, totally. Yeah, right. Like super,

Michael: like obvious self-confidence in this man.

Yeah, and, and I think that, you know, my. Thing number four about accountability and willing to like man up. That seems to come from the inside out. And that is a total man in the mirror quality.

Archival: Yeah.

Michael: I think he's a handsome devil in a way. And then it kind of rugged [00:49:00] good looks. I don't know. Actually that's a good question.

Is he handsome Sarah?

Sara: Yes. And he is way more handsome. I mean like, he's like way more obviously handsome. In those pictures we were like, who is this guy? But like in the, like in the fifties, sixties, you mean when he doesn't have the facial

Michael: hair? The shaggy hair? Yeah. Yeah. Where he

Sara: like is less persona and more.

You know? Yeah. He is not less outlawed before he is all

Michael: cruft up by the counterculture. Yeah,

Sara: yeah, yeah. And, and you know, some of that would be age, and he is like, well, I'm not what it was, there's a, there is a video, or like he and Johnny are looking at themselves on video. Like back in the day Johnny was like, that's a handsome man.

Yeah. I,

Michael: I always understood him to be a kind of, I mean, he is a man's man too. Yeah, yeah. You know, and he so like, well he's a

Sara: ladies' man. Like, that's what I'm saying, like, yeah, he's a ladies' man. Yeah, yeah. You do not doubt that the man had charisma, you know, so you Right. Yeah. You

Michael: weren't, you and was an attractive figure to, to whoever.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, handsome, but the question is always about self-confidence versus [00:50:00] self-judgment. I also see the self-confidence coming through. I think it is about, to my previous point of being able to be in touch with his creative spirit, I think it is also in his accountability to himself, which is where.

That's again, what this category is all about. Yeah. Am I judging myself or am I manning up? Yeah. And I see him as the, the kind of figure who mans up.

Sara: I mean, I think he did have survivor's guilt

Michael: survivor's guilt's around Buddy Holly in particular. Yeah. I mean, is that what we're talking about? Yeah. Yeah.

Getting through that

Sara: flight. But I think that like the back two thirds of his life, it's almost like bonus time, you know? So he is like, he survived all this poverty. He is like made it into the music industry. He gets to the top of the mountain, he like reaches his goals. He is like helping people up. He's got a good group around him that love him even though they're, you know, hiding.

There's some hangers on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are people taking advantage of him. But, and, and you know, he would like

Michael: Hell's Angels in particular? Wilder. Yeah. Oh yeah. And he

Sara: did say that at times he thinks he was buying friendship, but because he said it could be a very lonely place, but there was a confidence about him that I don't think you could fake.

Michael: [00:51:00] Totally. I, I think that your point about survivor's guilt and Buddy Holly is an interesting one. 'cause I, I was thinking like, okay, did it haunt him? And it did haunt him? Oh yeah. There's a real sort of serenity prayer moment where he talks about coming to peace with it. I forget the figure, but somebody says, you know, you really think you killed him with that remark by saying, I hope your plane crashes.

And he is like, and he is like, yeah. And he is like, well, okay, so can you bring him back to life? Yeah. And, and Waylon's like, well, obviously not. And it, so I, I think that there is a recognition and a humility of his own power.

Archival: This guy, high Pockets I was talking about a while ago, he's the only one that helped me out with that and what he said, he said.

If you could bring Buddy back, would you? And I said, yeah. And he said, if you think that you had anything to do with sending him away, then you should be able to bring him back. You know? He had to get it down on that level to work with me with it. And that's what, you can't bring him back and you didn't send him out.

Michael: I could see why that comment would haunt you. I mean, you, you know. Oh, yeah. And confuse you. Mm-hmm. You know, and I think the fact that [00:52:00] he got to a place where he reasoned it out, you know, speaks to resolution. Inside. So, okay. Category eight, cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most wanna do with our dead celebrity.

I'll lead off here. You know, I don't, so he, one thing that's kind of that impressed me is that he's not a drinker. I know very few people who have struggled with cocaine, who didn't say something along the lines of, I got into Coke because it allowed me to drink more. I don't know that many Coke heads who weren't also alcoholics.

Yeah. Or even primarily alcoholics. He's not a drinker. Yeah. Which is sort of surprising in a way. I don't wanna have a drink with him.

Sara: Yeah. I don't wanna help him backslide into anything. Right, right, right, right.

Michael: Coffee seems honestly a little too boring. So I went with, uh, smoking a joint. It gets back to my earlier point of he, he is one of those artists where when I was learning guitar, I became really, really impressed with the simplicity of his songs and how much he [00:53:00] does within that, and.

But while I'm a sober guy these days, I really miss smoking pot and playing music. I'd love to just. Play guitar. Yeah. With Waylon Jennings. I'd love to take guitar lessons from him. I'd love to have him point out to me how he's finding opportunity and creativity within simple structure. That just sounds like a nice moment.

And my, my ambition as a guitar player is to be campfire competent and Waylon Jennings is kind of my gateway drug to that. So, uh, I went with pot. I didn't make it too complicated. How about you, what'd you go with for this category?

Sara: I wanted coffee to go at the Ryman. What's the, the Ryman? The Ryman is the Mother Church of Country Music.

It is a tabernacle. That was where the original home of the Grand Ole Opry. And so is it an actual church or are you saying that it was literally a tabernacle? It's like there are pews. I just went, I just took my daughter to her first Grand Ole Opry and it was, I saw this, this was so cute. It was amazing.

It was amazing. And. [00:54:00] She sat down and looked around and said, where's Dolly?

She just assumed she was there, so I took her out. Mom, I showed

Michael: up for

Sara: one reason. Yeah, I know one reason. Luckily only luckily there's like a giant wall. I love that. She was disappointed. There's a wall size picture, so I went out and took a little video of her out there. We could put that in the show notes if you want, but it, but I would go, that's to the original home, which is where he did a really powerful performance there that is available.

I can, we can put the link in for that as well. Yeah. But it was, he had a, you know, he had a complicated relationship with the Opry, but also he listened to it with his family, you know, he, he had that story. Yeah. And so like, so I think it really is a good place for me as somebody who, you know, loves country music and lives in Nashville.

I would, I would. I mean, it is where his

Michael: memory is enshrined in some ways. Yeah. And so like coffee with him there. Feels like a place to reflect on his position. Yeah. [00:55:00] In this history.

Sara: Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

Michael: yeah. And in this institution,

Sara: that's what I would want to do. Is there

Michael: any conversation you would picture having in that setting?

I mean, I sort of was mapping onto it a kind of like understanding what, you know, you and Waylon. Uh, there's, well, I think

Sara: it lets you do two things. It lets me talk about the highs and the lows so we can talk about Yeah. Like how his whole story started, like what his intro to country music was. His journey.

Yeah. And how he like decided a guitar was something he wanted to play. And then,

Archival: yeah.

Sara: And then like where he ends up, because that is like where the history is. So he'd have individual memories there. And then I went to the Ryman to see Chris Christofferson. So that's the only, um, oh, that's cool. Only one of the highway men that I've seen there.

And my late brother took me there too, which was an amazing. Thing that he was like, we're doing this. I was like, okay. Yeah. And so he had a bunch of stories about the highwaymen and so I would, I'd just like to be there. Yeah. With Wayne. Yeah. Connect with that. Yeah.

Michael: [00:56:00] That's cool. Mm-hmm. Okay. We've arrived the final category, the Vander beak, named after James Vander Beak, who famously said, and varsity blues.

I don't want your life in that varsity blue scene, James makes a judgment. He does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics. So here Sarah and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Waylon Jennings lived. Let's start with the counterarguments of why you would not want this life.

I do think that there's definitely some troubled interpersonal relationships mm-hmm. In places. Mm-hmm. He is chainsmoking marriages. He is a, he's all Spanky twang. He is Grant through Richmond. You're right. Yeah, yeah. Right. This is the three and, and you know, okay. But it's kind of, I don't know. I do think that pretty easy to counter that with he does find.

A lasting, committed relationship with Jesse, his son. His sons are still carrying his legacy in a big way. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think that there is a man who struggled to express love at times, but what is ultimately lovable and giving back. So I think that that's not too much of [00:57:00] a counterargument. I do think he blew a lot of cash.

You know what? So what? Yeah. There's a book out there called Die with Zero. Mm-hmm. Where the whole I and I not advocating for blow your life savings on Coke, but um, I do think, uh, there's gonna be highs and lows. $2 million is, feels a little low given his stature. Yeah. However, $2 million is still quite a lot of money.

Especially in 2002. Yeah. When he dies. Yeah. I don't know what the other big counter arguments would be, you know? Why else would you not want this life, Sarah? I mean, it actually, well it was, it was go, it was hard

Sara: living. Like it wasn't, you know, like it wasn't, um, being on the road. Yeah. And in of like the loneliness in terms like, yeah, if you're gonna draw a chance card as to where you wanna start out, it probably was not in those cotton fields, you know, and that type of poverty.

But I think that, and then, you know, I also think life as a performer too. Yeah. You know, he talks about the loneliness of the fame. He talks about being an outsider is like, could became an identity and a little bit of freedom [00:58:00] like everybody wants. To belong, you know? So I think, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there was a way in which he found belonging with that.

That's why it was my first thing I loved about him is that he, I think he found belonging. He was like, you know what? These legends love me. You know? So, yeah. Yeah.

Michael: I, I think, well, let's go right for the case for why you would want this. Like, because I think that that's, that is a good thing. Number one, not only did he find belonging, he created

Archival: belonging.

Michael: Like he created a community where artists could follow and could be inspired and could discover their own voices within creative effort. You know, he, he, he creates a genre that people see themselves in.

Sara: Yeah. He creates a space, like, that's like he, yeah.

Michael: Yeah. Exactly.

Sara: Yeah. I, I think creatively there's everything to want.

In his life. I just think that he, yeah.

Michael: The, the, the through line of music throughout his life as a way of getting in touch with his inner soul and humanity. Yeah. That's thing number two for me. I mean, I, I [00:59:00] don't know that we have to commit to a single kind of creative endeavor mm-hmm. As people, uh, we, we shouldn't, we should try other things, but if you find the thing that works for you and you run with that, you know, for the duration of the run.

Archival: Mm-hmm.

Michael: Hell yeah. Oh yeah. You know? Awesome. Yeah. And, and I find that desirable and I, I do think that, I keep coming back to it, but I do think my thing number four about accountability and manning up, I mean, I, I think that there is growth in his Oh yeah. You know, I, I do.

Sara: Yeah. If you were, if you're like a reincarnation person, I think, I think he's gonna get an upgrade in his next life and there's not a lot of way to, to upgrade.

Yeah. Yeah.

Archival: You

Sara: know, so I just think, um, yeah. Yeah, I think that there was something about that, and I do think, I know the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but I just, I, I think for a lot of people, the road to heaven is too, and I think he always said he is like, I know I never meant to hurt anyone.

You know? Like that wasn't, yeah. I wasn't out [01:00:00] there. I,

Michael: that's an interesting point actually. I think something that has been true for me in recovery is like coming to see that I caused pain without realizing it. One of the things that happens with when you're caught up in addiction and alcoholism is that you are so self-centered that you don't see your impact on other people.

And some of that is straight up negligence, right? It's not necessarily that you beat somebody up or, or caused emotional pain by, you know, being a complete jerk. It's that you were so self-centered, you didn't see that other people needed you and wanted your love, and wanted your attention. I do think that he comes to that realization, that's part of his redemption story, is that my self-centeredness was in the way.

Of of the ideal that I was trying to reach and set for myself. Yeah. Well, is there anything else you would add to the why you should want this life? I feel like we've made a pretty good case here, but if there's anything else,

Sara: I mean, what you leave behind matters and just the [01:01:00] disco, like just the music.

Yeah. You know, it's, it's not a small thing, you know, and I do think that he also, I love like this Dolly Parton model I call it, where you like, forge a path and pave a road, you know, like that. Yeah. And he, he did that.

Michael: Yeah. All right. With that James Vander Beek. I'm Waylon Jennings and you want my life.

Okay. Before we close, famous and Gravy listeners, if you enjoyed this episode and you're enjoying our show, if you've got your phone in your hand, please take a moment and share it with a friend. We are trying to grow our show, one podcast listener at a time. Sarah, speed round plugs for pass shows. If people enjoyed the Wayland Jennings episode, what else might they like for the back catalog?

Sara: There is a story of Shooter Jennings's christening, where one of Waylon's daughters brings a guy she had been dating who was a songwriter to the party, and [01:02:00] she has not told him who. Her family is okay. And so she walks up and says, this is my dad, Waylon Jennings. And he and the guy's like, and Waylon said it was his eyes popped out, like on he haw, you know?

And he goes, and sitting to my left was Muhammad Ali. It was Shooter's Godfather. Yes. And on my right was Johnny Cash, so I would recommend that Trio. I think that's the, that episode. Johnny Cash, that's the famous Eng Gravy Trinity for this episode. I think it would be Muhammad Ali and Johnny Cash.

Michael: I love it.

So those would be episodes 31, the Greatest. Muhammad Ali and Johnny Cash, episode 84, vocal Bedrock. All right, I'm going pretty deep into the catalog. I forgot what a popular episode this was and how much people loved our episode on John Prine, episode 19 Singing Mailman. Mm-hmm. You wanna talk about another Nashville figure who colored outside the lines and who had a creative journey and a creative spirit.

[01:03:00] So episode 19, singing Mailman John Prine. All right. Here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy. He dropped out of Reed College in 1972 and he once told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life.

Archival: That sounds like it could be one of my uncles.

But, um,

Michael: no clues, not your uncle. Finally, famous and Gravy listeners, we love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment, a question, or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels.

Famous Eng Gravy is created by Amad Kapur and me, Michael Osborne. Thank you so much to the wonderful Sarah Murphy for guest hosting. This episode was produced by Ali Ola, with assistance from Jacob Weiss, original music by Kevin Strang. Thank you and see you next time.