'Scuse Me While I Whip This Out

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Chapter One

Outlaws

The life of a country singer can at times be verytedious. You have to pretend that your life is a financialpleasure even when your autographs are bouncing. You often fall prey to the serioussongwriters' self-pity syndrome.You begin to believethat all dentists and marriedcouples are happier than youare. Many's the night you feel lonely, empty, homesick for heaven. Everybody youknow thinks you've got it made and suddenly you findyou're a jet-set gypsy cryin' on the shoulder of thehighway. Believe me when I tell you, it's lonely in themiddle.

But long before the Outlaw Movement, as we nowcall it, came along in the 1970s, there were greatvoices in country music who never fit in wherever theywere. Their spirits and songs somehow survived thatall-pervasive white noise called the Nashville Sound even before it had a name. Ishivered for Jimmie Rodgers,the Singin' Brakeman, standingin the rain waiting for fastfreights and faithless womenwho never came, who finallysang the TB blues, dying outlike a train whistle in thenight, the lantern still swingingin his hand. And Hank Williams, skinny, hungry,spiritually horny, for whom all the world was a stage.Shakespeare of the sequined summer stock. Hank diedwhen he was twenty-nine years old -- perfect timingfor a country music legend, dreaming his last backseatdreams in the backseat of that shimmering, earthboundCadillac, on his way to a show in Canton, Ohio,he would never get to play. Some people will do anythingto get out of a gig in Canton, Ohio.

Now where was I before I started hearing voices inmy head? Oh, yeah. It was Nashville in the early seventies.Most of the songs sounded alike, most of thesingers looked alike, and most of the songwriters thought alike if they thought at all. Sound familiar?Well, that was the problem for one songwriter and pigfarmer named Willie Nelson who left Music City forTexas in a daring journey some modern biblical scholarsnow refer to as the Exodus. He wanted to make hisown music his own way and not be a slave to the recordcompany or the powers that be. Willie was soon to leada band of long-haired hippie cowboys farther into musicalhistory than anyone imagined. Today he modestlysays: "I just found a parade and jumped in front of it."

Waylon Jennings at thesame time was fighting thesame battle in Nashville. Likeall of us, he struggled with hisown demons as he struggledagainst the musical establishment.One of my first memoriesof Waylon was one day as I was walking up an alley behind Music Row, and hedrove up in a big Cadillac and a cloud of dust. Hepulled up beside me and lowered the window and Iswear he looked part devil and part smilin' mighty Jesus.On that day he gave me some words to live by thatI have never forgotten. He said: "Get in, Kink.Walkin's bad for your image."

Tompall Glaser of the Glaser Brothers was the firstsuccessful Nashville cat to open up his studio to many of us with weird songs, ideas,and hours. That was where Ifirst met Captain Midnite, themost-often-fired disc jockey in Nashville, and a man whom, I believe, was one of themajor spiritual linchpins of the whole Outlaw Movement.Midnite once stayed up for six days, told me itfelt like a week, and then gave me his most cherishedpossession, his cowboy hat. I wore it for a while untilTompall violently yanked it from my head during arather intense pinball game, proceeded to wear it for awhile, and then gave it to Waylon.

Soon everyone was wearing hats, swapping hats,and swapping song lyrics in a spirit that hadn't beenseen since God had created Nashville. Tompall claimsthat that pinball moment when he grabbed my hatand put it on his head without even tilting was themoment the Outlaw Movement spiritually began. BillMonroe and Ernest Tubb, of course, he noted respectfully,had always worn hats.

Billy Joe Shaver probably was the purest, most CheGuevara-like spirit of the whole gang. In 1973 WaylonJennings recorded an album made up almost entirely ofBilly Joe Shaver songs. It was called Honky Tonk Heroesand it remains the very best the times had to offer.

Wanted: The Outlaws. They're wanted, all right.Today I only listen to country music on the radio at gunpoint. It seems to me to be a virtual wastelandpopulated by hat acts, soundalikes, and anti-Hanks.When the Outlaws were on the loose, songs were writtenin blood, sung by people who'd loved and cried them, lived and died them.Some of us were crucified oncrosses of vinyl. Some werestoned for their ideas; stonedfor their hairy, scary, soon to belegendary lifestyles; or justplain stoned. Billy Joe Shaver wrote "Honky Tonk Heroes" and we were. Lee Claytonwrote "Ladies Love Outlaws" and they did. Williehad been wandering like a modern-day Moses in theTexas desert. Waylon had been a rebel without a clausein his recording contract to say and sing what he believed.And in Austin, Jerry Jeff Walker had justthrown his new color TV into his swimming pool. Asfor myself, I think I was always leaving my soul at thedry cleaners in the last town we played.

Did the Outlaws, as they wandered through theraw poetry of time, leave any dusty dream trails for today'scountry artists to follow? The answer is yes andthe answer is no. The only thing we can be sure of isthat today's artists may for now be on the charts, butthe Outlaws will always be in our hearts.

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Excerpted from 'Scuse Me While I Whip This Out: Reflections on Country Singers, Presidents, and Other Troublemakers by Kinky Friedman
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