Book summary

The hard livin', hard lovin' country music outlaw Waylon Jennings' reputation as a kind of cowboy Keith Richards was, in many ways, well deserved. His frequent brushes with the law (after one bust, the cops threw Jennings' marijuana stash away, saying the singer had enough problems already) and tumultuous love life make for some lurid reading and vicarious thrills in this colorful confessional, written with rock scribe and Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye. Born into a dirt-poor farming family, Jennings got his first show business break as a DJ on KVOW, his local radio station. He befriended Buddy Holly and became his bass player, but his biggest break may have been giving up his seat on the plane that was later to crash, killing Holly, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens. In the course of a wildly fluctuating career, Jennings seems at times to willfully court disaster. But by the time his natural wildness has become his public persona in the mid-1970s, he's had enough, quitting drugs--but tripling his intake of cigarettes. Jennings' mix of relish and regret in recounting his addictions, affairs, and roller-coaster career gives WAYLON an intriguing air of both tell-all and personal exorcism.

Media reviews

"This book transcends any music-biz bio....It's a wild ride."