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In His Own Words.... ''There's always one more way to do something — your way.'' On Luckenbach: "Right off I never liked that song. It's not the type of song I'd do. But I learned a lesson from that, I turned around and told Richie, the drummer, I said, 'Next time when I record a song, you remind me I have to sing that sumbitch the rest of my life.'" "Country music and blues was about a beat apart. Purely from the soul. Most of it, if you listen to it, has the same chord structure. Verse chorus verse chorus and that. It was about the good and bad times and trying to get rid of a woman and get the one you want, that's about it and that's what the blues are about." “I think you need to play your music and do the best you can with that. That's what you'll be remembered for.” After hearing Elvis Presley for the first time in 1954: "That sound went straight up your spine." You play your music because you love it, you play it for the people you love. And, uh, it's a little community. And they come and you know them and they know you, and what's more, if you miss a note, they know it too. They're your best critics. Then one day you find your self up on a stage facing 10,000 people, and if you miss a note, they don't know it. They don't care. They came to see 'Waylon Jennings'". "My dad played like Jimmie Rodgers, and we would sit around and sing some of his songs when I was a kid. He would also play dances with my mom. Mama used to gripe because she had to hold the harmonica in his mouth. He never wanted to go very far with it. He just wanted to have fun." On be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame: "Actually I think they've set it where it's not gonna be broadcast this year because they're afraid of what I was gonna say,." ''I've never compromised, and people respect that.'' About his outlaw image: ''It was a good marketing tool. In a way, I am that way. You start messing with my music, I get mean. As long was you are honest and up front with me, I will be the same with you. But I still do things my way.'' On Buddy Holly: ''Mainly what I learned from Buddy was an attitude. He loved music, and he taught me that it shouldn't have any barriers to it.'' ''I'd like to be remembered for my music — not necessarily by what people see when they see us — but what they feel when they talk about you,'' ''Some people have their music. My music has me.''
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"Waylon really stuck his neck out. He was the one who took the heat. I didn’t know what heat was, I was just the guy that was around hollering at him every once in awhile telling him he was ruining my melody and stuff like that. I didn’t have sense enough to know the greatest singer in the world was doing my songs." -- Billy Joe Shaver
"He gave us a lot. He did what
he intended to do. It maybe kind of corny, but he really did what he
intended to do and that was to leave us something for us to remember him
by. And when I hear his music I just think how could he have been so
right. How can one man know that far ahead or have that much instinct
about what he’s doing? He was good boy. He’s okay. Let me tell you his
soul is alright. In my heart I know that, beyond a shadow of a doubt."
-- Billy Ray Reynolds "He was a genius, man." -- Ray Benson "He was an American archetype, the bad guy with the big heart." Kris Kristofferson "I loved Waylon. He had a voice and a way with a song like no one else. He was also a class act as an artist and as a man. I'm really going to miss him." -- Emmylou Harris "For all of Waylon's tough stuff, he had such a tender heart. He was such a sweet soul. ... I remember as a kid hearing 'Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line.' It hit me as hard as 'She Loves You' by The Beatles." -- Rodney Crowell. "Great writer, great singer and a dear friend. What was great about him is you could take him at his word. If he said a hog weighed 5 pounds, then you could wrap it up. ... In the country, we call that an honest person." -- Glen Campbell. "I'm just so sad personally and it's a great loss for country music. We ran together in our early days, and remained in touch right up to today." -- George Jones. "Waylon was a dear friend, one of the very best of 35 years. I'll miss him immensely." -- Musician Johnny Cash, who was in The Highwaymen with Jennings. "He broadened the scope of country music, and he did it straight from his heart," says journalist Hazel Smith, "At that time the whole culture was changing our hair was long and we were called outlaws. Later it became the outlaw movement, but actually we thought we were outcasts. We weren’t from wealthy backgrounds, we were all from working class people. I think that's what we brought to it, was the working class music that we’d grown up with. Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, Lefty Frizzell, and Bob Wills. How could we be wrong when they were so right? We were trying to grow from maybe what we had grown up with." -- Billy Ray Reynolds "He was the first guy to have a dangerous lifestyle who became mainstream. There was danger around before, but nobody embodied it with the hipness that Waylon did." Rodney Crowell "We're all gonna miss him--he's one of a kind." Merle Haggard
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"The
whole thing about it is I don't know what age has to do with not being
able to get a record played, and that's fine with me because you know
what? I think they're stupid anyway. The way the radio is doing things
now, letting someone else pick everything for them and program it for 'em
and telling them everyone of 45 years old aren't commercial. The other
day, me and some guys... we've got a group called The Old Dogs...
Well, you know what, they checked the numbers, and they were tryin' to
get a million people to watch that show, and they got a million and a
half, and sixty or seventy percent of them were young women. Now that
shoots the hell out of their damned theory."
