89 “I can’t really remember”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
90 “Kris Kristofferson surprised”: Ralph J. Gleason, “Perspectives: Kristofferson’s Fine Flick,” Rolling Stone, April 13, 1972.
91 Young musicians in Nashville: Chet Flippo, “Dylan Meets the Durango Kid,” Rolling Stone, March 15, 1973.
91 “I’ll never forget seeing”: Author interview with Fritts.
91 It also gave him: Author interview with Foster.
Chapter Five: With Purpose Down There
93 “As my country”: David Crockett, The Life of Davy Crockett (New York: A. L. Burt, 1903), 251.
93 “Chet knew I wanted”: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 168.
94 “I’d mix his sessions”: Author interview with Jerry Bradley, May 17, 2011.
94 “About twelve o’clock”: Author interview with Bradley, July 11, 2010.
94 “The minute he came”: Author interview with Ronny Light, November 7, 2010.
95 “Chet used to have”: Author interview with Bradley.
95 “I was hoping”: Author interview with Light.
96 He and his brother: Ibid.
96 “He had tons of cuts”: Ibid.
96 “It’s this album”: J. R. Young, “The Monster Voice of Waylon Jennings,” Rolling Stone, September 9, 1971.
97 “The next day or so”: Author interview with Reynolds, January 28, 2012.
97 On record, the rollicking: Email to author from Wayne Stevens, March 10, 2011.
97 “Ronny was young”: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 184.
97 “When I produced”: Author interview with Light.
98 “I was in an office”: Author interview with Bradley, May 17, 2011.
98 In the spring of 1971: Author interview with Reynolds, January 27, 2012.
98 “Somebody sent out for some hamburgers”: Ibid.
99 “At the time”: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 161.
99 “It was a great record”: Ibid.
99 “It wasn’t the normal”: Author interview with Elroy Kahanek, May 15, 2011.
99 “They would press”: Author interview with Light.
100 “Waylon walked into”: Author interview with Kahanek.
100 “One day in my office”: Ibid.
101 “One tour would”: Author interview with Reynolds, January 28, 2012.
102 He was run-down: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 176.
102 “This town ran”: Author interview with Albright, July 20, 2010.
102 Suffering from hepatitis: Robert Hilburn, “The Ballad of A Nashville Outlaw,” Washington Post, December 24, 1978.
102 “He was just fed up”: Author interview with Albright.
102 “He looked like a”: Author interview with Albright, November 4, 2010.
103 “Neil and I talked”: Ibid.
103 “I think it’s one”: Nelson with Shrake, Willie, 167.
104 One last album on RCA: Chet Flippo, “Records,” Rolling Stone, November 23, 1972.
104 “Chet liked me”: Joe Nick Patoski, Willie Nelson: An Epic Life (New York: Back Bay Books, 2008), 249–50.
105 Ronny Light argues: Author interview with Light.
105 “They were just off-the-wall”: Author interview with Kahanek, October 8, 2010.
105 “I was in sort of”: Nelson with Shrake, Willie, 167.
105 “Lynn Anderson was”: Author interview with Reynolds, January 28, 2012.
106 “I was at a Christmas”: Ed Ward, “Willie Nelson,” Rolling Stone, January 15, 1976.
106 “I knew I only”: Patrick Carr, “The Man Who Beat the System,” Country Music, February 1976.
107 Willie reckoned that: Oermann, Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain, 298.
107 “Threadgill’s was the first”: Jack Hurst, “The Pickin’s Pickin’ Up in Austin,” Chicago Tribune, March 31, 1976.
108 “But the obvious plus”: Jan Reid, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), 68.
108 “The manager was real”: Oermann, Behind the Grand Ole Opry Curtain, 298–99.
108 “There was hippies”: Author interview with Albright, July 7, 2010.
109 “Going back to Texas”: Dave Hickey, “In Defense of the Telecaster Cowboy Outlaws,” Country Music, January 1974.
110 “He got on the stool”: Susie Nelson, Heart Worn Memories: A Daughter’s Personal Biography of Willie Nelson (New York: Pocket Books, 1987), 218.
111 And when the last inch: Chet Flippo, “Willie Nelson’s New York Country Sessions,” Rolling Stone, April 12, 1973.
111 “With this flawless album”: Steve Ditlea, “Records,” Rolling Stone, August 30, 1973.
Chapter Six: The West End Watershed
113 “Nashville’s a great”: Jack Bernhardt, “‘Like Paris in the Twenties,’” Journal of Country Music 13, no. 3 (1990).
114 “We were all hippies”: Author interview with Davidson.
114 “This was post Flatt-Scruggs”: Author interview with Dan Beck, September 28, 2010.
115 “We could afford”: Ibid.
115 He couldn’t have picked: Marshall Chapman, Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003), 140.
115 “The girl, all 6 foot 2”: Louis Vodopya, “Memories of Nashville,” available at www.nashlinks.com/memories.htm.
115 “They used to”: Author interview with Beck.
116 “All the session guys”: Ibid.
117 Each and every evening: Ibid.
118 Characters such as: Ibid.
118 “I remember when”: Author interview with Berger.
118 “He was about my age”: Ibid.
118 “Somebody must have got”: Ibid.
119 A girl simply known: Joyce Wadler, “Making It and Making Do in Nashville,” Country Music, August 1973; author interview with Hugh Bennett, May 16, 2011.
119 “There’s a wonderful”: Author interview with Minzer.
119 “The Exit/In was”: Author interview with Berger.
122 “Vince was the guy”: Author interview with Casey.
122 “There was a doctor”: Ibid.
123 “Nobody knew what”: Ibid.
123 “I used to take”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
124 “This time, I”: Gail Buchalter, “Vince Matthews Sings about Kingston Springs,” Country Music, March 1973.
124 “The Cashes sat”: Author interview with Casey, October 29, 2010.
124 “By this time”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
124 Jim Casey remembers: Author interview with Casey.
124 “Vince was never”: Author interview with Kristofferson.
125 “All of a sudden”: Author interview with Casey.
125 “That signaled the end”: Ibid.
125 He eventually returned to: Peter Cooper, “Matthews, Who Wrote Songs Including ‘Love in the Hot Afternoon,’ Dies at 63,” Tennessean, November 26, 2003.
126 “In that east-side”: Author interview with Rodney Crowell, July 19, 2010.
127 “We were all young”: Author interview with Clark.
128 With that “L.A. Freeway”: Ibid.
128 “Basically, it’s busking”: Author interview with Crowell.
130 “Unbeknownst to me”: Ibid.
Chapter Seven: Hillbilly Central
131 “Paris of the thirties”: Reid, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, 188.
131 “She had separated”: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 164.
132 “He was a typical”: Author interview with Reynolds.
133 According to Waylon’s biographer: Denisoff, Waylon, 184–85.
133 In a statement to the press: Ibid., 187.
133 “While Steve Young”: Vladimir Bogdanov et al., All Music Guide to Country (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2003), 377.
134 “It was afte
r five o’clock”: Author interview with Bradley, July 22, 2010.
134 RCA rushed out: “RCA Reshuffles Personnel,” Billboard, December 6, 1972.
135 “You’d look out there”: Author interview with Fritts.
135 “Everywhere now there”: Grover Lewis, “Hillbilly Heaven: Take the Money and Go Limp,” Rolling Stone, April 27, 1972.
136 Onstage, Tex Ritter: Reid, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, 245.
136 Earl Scruggs generously: Lewis, “Hillbilly Heaven”; Dave Hickey, “Waylon: More and Better, Faster Stronger,” Country Music, December 1974.
136 When the last tones: Lewis, “Hillbilly Heaven.”
137 “I was just worn-out”: Author interview with Reynolds.
137 Lewis followed Shaver: Ibid.
137 In his autobiography: Billy Joe Shaver, Honky Tonk Hero (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 32–33.
139 The often butted singer: Author interview with Casey.
139 “Tompall was pretty much”: Author interview with Reynolds, January 27, 2012.
140 On March 15, 1968: David N. Meyer, Twenty-Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music (New York: Villard, 2007), 232.
140 “It was just people”: Author interview with Fritts.
140 “They had an extension cord”: Author interview with Stevens.
141 “I discovered two principles”: Dave Hickey, “A Night of ‘Hillbilly Reality’ with Tompall Glaser,” Country Music, December 1973.
141 Tompall had encountered: Denisoff, Waylon, 218.
141 “We wound up in England”: Author interview with Reynolds.
142 “You know, before”: Dave Hickey, “Waylon: More and Better, Faster and Stronger.”
142 In his autobiography, Shaver: Shaver, Honky Tonk Heroes, 33.
142 According to Waylon’s drummer: Author interview with Albright.
143 “I’d leave messages”: Shaver, Honky Tonk Heroes, 33.
143 “That just pissed”: Ibid., 34.
143 “We were doing the album”: Author interview with Albright.
144 When it came time to pick: Author interview with Kahanek, October 8, 2010.
144 “That was really weird”: Author interview with Fritts.
145 “Their attitude then was”: Author interview with Kahanek.
145 “After many years”: Steve Ditlea, “Records,” Rolling Stone, November 22, 1973.
146 In an interview with the Tennessean: “Jennings Severing His RCA Ties,” Tennessean, September 6, 1973.
146 “He tried to get”: “Jennings Has Obligation, RCA Says,” Tennessean, September 7, 1973.
146 During the Honky Tonk Heroes: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 192.
146 “I’m in the middle”: Author interview with Bradley, July 11, 2010.
147 “I was in the studio”: Author interview with Kyle Lehning, July 20, 2010.
148 “I was at a Shel Silverstein show”: Author interview with Mayor.
149 “Jessi was opening”: Author interview with Lehning.
149 “It started with a couple”: Author interview with Reynolds, January 28, 2012.
149 “I refuse to be two different people”: Bill Hance, “Wax Fax,” Nashville Banner, November 16, 1973.
150 “Waylon had this tough-guy image”: Author interview with Lehning.
150 “Every time we played”: Author interview with Reynolds.
Chapter Eight: Burger Boy Outlaws
151 “You walk down”: Robert Penn Warren. At Heaven’s Gate (1943; reprint, New York: New Directions, 1985), 225.
152 Repeated tellings: Richard E. Meyer, “The Outlaw: A Distinctive American Folktype,” Journal of the Folklore Institute 17, no. 2/3 (May–December 1980), 99.
153 “They are serious people”: Nicholas Von Hoffman, “How Columbia Pulled Down Its Pillars,” Washington Post, June 16, 1968.
153 In 1973, a North Carolina: Author interview with Smith.
154 In January 1974: Hickey, “In Defense of the Telecaster Cowboy Outlaws.”
155 For a while, major publications: Martha Hume, “David Allan Coe’s Strange Saga,” Country Music, March 1976.
155 “According to people”: Marshall Fallwell, “Watch This Face: David Allan Coe,” Country Music, May 1974.
156 “You’d have a beginning-of-the-year convention”: Author interview with Beck.
156 “Now he seems”: John Rockwell, “David Coe on Way to Strong Career as a Song Stylist,” New York Times, May 24, 1974.
156 “In a way”: Author interview with Beck.
156 “A great, great songwriter”: Author interview with Albright.
157 “Waylon was nice enough to play guitar”: Ibid.
157 “His need to be looked upon”: Author interview with Mayor.
157 “We were loading David”: Author interview with Bennett.
157 “He wouldn’t go to bed”: Author interview with Albright.
158 “They’d play [pinball]”: Author interview with Smith.
158 “They are all-business”: Rich White, “Pinball Wizards Say, ‘Go for Broke,’” Vanderbilt Hustler, October 29, 1971.
159 The manager of the Burger Boy: Author interview with Terry George, September 14, 2010.
159 “mental masturbation”: Author interview with Albright.
159 “Sometimes he’d get”: Author interview with George.
159 “The atmosphere in the restaurant”: Ibid.
159 “You had people”: Ibid.
160 “Next to the pinball”: Ibid.
160 “One morning I came in”: Ibid.
160 Like George, Albright: Author interview with Albright.
161 “Waylon one day”: Author interview with George.
161 “We tried to bar her”: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 247.
161 “I came in the Burger Boy”: Author interview with George.
162 Waylon wrote later: Jennings with Kaye, Waylon, 247.
162 “He was doing a lot of pills”: Author interview with Albright.
163 “When Lee smiled”: Author interview with Cowboy Joe Babcock, October 28, 2010.
163 “One time we were playing a dance”: Author interview with Babcock.
164 “One time when Lee”: Ibid.
164 He saw sadness: Author interview with Fritts, June 27, 2011.
164 Three years later, Emerson shot: Official court records, Shelby County (Tenn.) Criminal Court, State of Tennessee v. Lee E. Bellamy.
164 “I know that he hung with”: Author interview with Smith.
165 “John was not writing”: Author interview with Casey, October 22, 2010.
165 Fritts warned Emerson: Author interview with Fritts.
Chapter Nine: Between Worlds
167 “We in Nashville”: Ralph McGill, “Formaldehyde and Poetry,” in Patrick Allen, ed., Literary Nashville (Athens, GA: Hillstreet Press, 1999), 88.
168 “The counterculture”: Author interview with Rosanne Cash, May 17, 2010.
169 Newspapers reported: Gene Baker, “Prince Foiled in Marriage,” Nashville Banner, June 4, 1969; “No Sale,” Tennessean, September 6, 1973; “Nashvillian Charged in Dice Game Death,” Nashville Tennessean, June 4, 1969.
170 “Why, I’ve stood”: Jerry Thompson, “Acuff Says Ryman Should Go ‘Before It Falls Down,’” Tennessean, March 15, 1974.
170 “That probably takes first prize”: Ada Louise Huxtable, “Only the Phony Is Real,” New York Times, March 13, 1973.
171 National Life blinked: Music: Patrick Carr, “One Year’s Grace for the Ryman Auditorium,” Country Music, August 1973.
171 Skeeter Davis, known: John McLemore, “Cult Dramatizes ‘Brothers’ Arrest,” Nashville Banner, December 10, 1973.
171 A Billboard magazine reporter: Jerry Bailey, “WSM Policy Scalds Skeeter,” Tennessean, December 18, 1973; Larry L. King, “The Grand Ole Opry,” Harper’s, July 1968.
171 When reporters asked: Patrick Thomas, “Christ Group Picket in Support of Skeeter,” Tennessean, De
cember 22, 1973.
171 Years later, Wendell: Stacy Harris, “Bud Wendell: Company Man,” available at http://stacyharris.com/bud.html.
172 “Evidently these officers”: Skeeter Davis, Busfare to Kentucky: The Autobiography of Skeeter Davis (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1993), 267.
172 In 1966, Roy Acuff: Peter McCabe, “The Wallaces Are Keeping Country Music in the Family,” Country Music, October 1973; Jimmy McDonough, Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen (New York: Viking, 2010), 187.
172 “During the 1968”: Paul Hemphill, The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1970), 153.
172 The Watergate scandal: Hays Corey, “The Nation: Goldwater on Nixon’s Prospects,” Time, May 28, 1973.
173 “Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry”: “That Piano Player ‘Felt at Home,’” Nashville Banner, March 19, 1974.
174 “As Tewkesbury cocked an ear”: Jan Stuart, The Nashville Chronicles: The Making of Robert Altman’s Masterpiece (New York: Limelight Editions, 2000), 47.
174 “Nashville is a place”: Gary Arnold, “Altman’s Nashville: An American Allegory on Film,” Washington Post, June 29, 1975.
175 “It’s about ambition”: Vincent Canby, “Lively Film of Many Parts,” New York Times, June 12, 1975.
176 “When you show the anatomy”: Bill Hance, “Nashville Premiere Churns Sour Response,” Nashville Banner, August 9, 1975.
177 “There’s a famous drag race guy”: Author interview with Crowell.
177 “Willie was a poet”: Ibid.
178 “She was with Warner Bros.”: Ibid.
179 “The Nashville establishment”: Ibid.
180 “It was the first time”: Chet Flippo, Red Headed Stranger (Sony Music Entertainment, 2000).
180 According to Connie Nelson: Ibid.
180 “They played the record”: Ibid.
182 “It was sex, drugs, and country music”: Author interview with Beck.
182 “If you looked at [the album]”: Ibid.
184 “This album reveals”: Ed Ward, “Records,” Rolling Stone, August 1975.
184 “Hemingway, who perfected”: Paul Nelson, “Willie Nelson’s Phonographic Western,” Rolling Stone, August 28, 1975.
Chapter Ten: Wanted!