Waylon Jennings (vocals, guitar, 1937–2002) was a teenage disc jockey in Lubbock, Texas, when he first met the hometown hero Buddy Holly (1936–59). Holly produced Jennings’ first single, ‘Jole Blon’, in September 1958, and hired Jennings as his bassist the following January. On 3 February 1959, Jennings was all set to take a charter ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1939) Shaver arrived in Nashville in 1968, sold songs to Kris Kristofferson and Tom T. Hall, and wrote all but one song on Waylon Jennings’ 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes. That led to Shaver’s own debut later the same year with Old Five And Dimers Like Me. Shaver had his songs recorded by Elvis ...
Buddy Holly was born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas, on 7 September 1936. Buddy got a guitar in his mid-teens and started practising with friend, Bob Montgomery. They liked country and western but also had predilection for the blues. An Elvis gig in Lubbock in early 1955 alerted them to new possibilities. Buddy and Bob, as ...
(Guitar, producer, 1924–2001) Tennessee-born Chester Burton Atkins, whose father was a music teacher, was one of the most influential twentieth-century guitarists, and was initially influenced by the finger- and thumb-picking country-style playing of Merle Travis. Signed to RCA from 1947, he made scores of mainly instrumental albums, and in 1955 became the head of ...
As the first superstar instrumentalist to emerge from the modern Nashville recording scene, Chet Atkins (1924–2001) was a living legend for most of his life, but the Nashville-based guitarist was also a producer, engineer, label executive and A&R man without peer. Chester Burton ‘Chet’ Atkins was born on in June 1924 in Luttrell, Tennessee. He started ...
One of modern country music’s most remarkable figures, Chester Burton Atkins born in Luttrell, Tennessee, rose from rural obscurity to become one of the world’s most celebrated guitarists and one of Nashville’s most influential record producers. Atkins’ musical vision did much to shape country music during the 1950s and 1960s. Early Years Atkins was born on 20 June ...
(Vocals, songwriter, b. 1941) The archetypal Texas troubadour, Clark cannot be called prolific, having released about 10 original albums since his 1975 debut, Old No. 1. Born in Monahans, West Texas, Clark worked in television, as a photographer and building boats and guitars. Influenced by bluesman Mance Lipscomb, he worked the Texas ...
(Vocals, b. 1943) Colter became associated with the Outlaw movement even though her big, pure pop-country voice gave her more in common with Glen Campbell than with her husband Waylon Jennings. She was born Mirriam Johnson in Phoenix, Arizona, where she married rockabilly guitarist Duane Eddy in 1962. After a 1968 divorce, she adopted her new ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1936) Kristofferson grew up on country music in Texas, but college in California, a Rhodes scholarship to England and service as an army helicopter pilot convinced him that the times demanded a new kind of country lyric – one that owed as much to Bob Dylan as to Hank Williams. Kristofferson moved to Nashville ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1942) Clayton, a former fighter pilot from Tennessee, was one of the most original songwriters in the Outlaws movement, penning ‘Ladies Love Outlaws’ for Waylon Jennings, ‘If You Could Touch Her At All’ for Willie Nelson and ‘Lone Wolf’ for Jerry Jeff Walker. Clayton’s own albums, marked by vivid if unconventional ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1946) Hubbard made his reputation early on by writing the rousing, tongue-in-cheek sing-along, ‘Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mother’, which Jerry Jeff Walker turned into his theme song. Alcohol and record-company problems prevented Hubbard from building on that success until the 1990s when he sobered up and emerged as one of the finest ...
(Vocals, guitar, 1932–99) Silverstein had just the right irreverent, satirical edge that the Outlaws movement was looking for, thanks to his background as a successful cartoonist for Playboy and a semi-successful folk singer. He wrote the comic fable ‘A Boy Named Sue’ for Johnny Cash (1969), the voodoo tale ‘Marie Laveau’ for Bobby Bare (1974), the ladies-man ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1942) Young grew up listening to country music in his native Georgia, played folk music in Greenwich Village and recorded early country-rock with Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman in California. He wove these disparate experiences into vivid story songs that were recorded by the Eagles, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Jr. and Dolly Parton. ...
(Vocals, guitar, b. 1933) Glaser was already a successful mainstream-country artist with 13 Top 40 hits to his credit when he joined Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter on the landmark 1976 album Wanted! The Outlaws. Tompall had grown up in rural Nebraska with his brothers Jim Glaser (vocals, guitar, harmonica, b. 1937) ...
A few days after Christmas, 1969, Willie Nelson (b. 1933) watched his house outside Nashville burn to the ground. Going up in flames were not only his furniture, guitars and only copies of unpublished songs – but also some of his ties to Music Row. A New Beginning Nelson had begun the decade as one of the hottest ...
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