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Waylon Jennings: Surviving Buddy Holly, the DEA, and Himself · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Whaylon Jennings are insane. He gave up a seat on
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a plane hours before it crashed and killed, among others,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Buddy Hawley. He stashed his pills in the wall of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: his apartment to hide them from his pill head roommate
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Johnny Cash. He did blow during halftime of an NFL
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: game with the Open Raiders, pulled a loaded gun in
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the recording studio, and was arrested by the DEA after
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: a kilo of cocaine was sent to him in the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: mail Waylon Jennings was a badass and a taker of
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: no shit, a major player in the formative days of
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: both rock and roll and outlaw country. And he made,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of course great music. Unlike that loop I played for
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: That was a preset loop from my mellotron called John
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Hughes Fever Dream MK Two. I played you that loop
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: because I can't afford the rights to best of My
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Love by the Emotions, And why would I play you
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that specific slice of whoa Woa Cheese? Could I afford it?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: August twenty fourth, nineteen seventy seven, and that was the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: day that federal agents rated a Nashville studio in the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: middle of a recording session with a warrant for Waylon
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Jennings's arrest. On this episode, a plane crash, pill stashes,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: coked up open raiders, loaded guns, badasses, and Waylon Jennings.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan, and this this disgrace Sland.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: You know, when you have a great idea, maybe you've
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: finally figured out what the meaning of life is, or
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you've got this idea for a great recipe for Thanksgiving
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: dinner where you stuff a chicken inside of a duck
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: stuffed inside of a turkey.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Whatever doesn't matter.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: What matters is that you get this idea in your head,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: something original, something unique, something genius, so genius that you're
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: convinced that no one else has ever thought of it,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: but you want to make sure.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And we live at a time where you can make.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Sure with a few keystrokes, so you google it, and
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: guess what, turns out you're no genius.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: After all, tens, hundreds.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Maybe thousands of people have already thought of that same
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: brilliant idea some seventy years ago. In the nineteen fifties,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: there was no Google, so there was no quick way
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: to confirm if your idea was unique to you or not.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: That said, I am confident that Elvis Presley wasn't the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: only person on the face of the planet at that
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: time thinking about taking country music in the blues and
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: matching them together to create something new. He just happened
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: to be the first one to put that thought into action,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and that thought breaking with tradition, breaking down color barriers.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: It was also on the minds of others like eight
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: hundred miles due west from Elvis from Memphis, all the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: way over in West Texas, first in the small town
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of Littlefield and then Lubbock, where young Whalon Jennings was
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: sharing that brilliant idea long before the Tupelo Kid told
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: his band to get real gone. And just like Elvis,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: at least the Elvis before Colonel Tom Parker entered the picture,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and just like many of the strong, humble folk out
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: there in West Texas Waylon Jennings didn't do what he
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: didn't want to do. He didn't want to pick cotton
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: no more, so he quit. He didn't like school, so
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: he dropped out. What he did want was to sing
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and play guitar and also play records on air at KADIEAV,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: a small radio station in Lowock, Texas, where eighteen year
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: old Whalen Jennings meanly married worked as a DJ country
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: blues R and B. He loved it all, and he
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: played it all, especially Little Richard. Tooty Fruity sent his
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: listeners into a frenzy, but not necessarily for the reason
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: you'd think it was, because this is supposed to be
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: a country music radio show and here was Whalan spinning
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: R and B. The station manager, Whalen's boss, was so
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: pissed that he got into his car, drove all the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: way over to the station, and tore Whaleen a new one.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: But that didn't cramp Whalen's style. In fact, he doubled down.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: The next night he played Little Richard.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: And Ray Charles back to back. In that same night
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: he was fired. Didn't matter, because Waylon Jennings wasn't meant
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: to play other people's records on the air. He was
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: meant to make his own music. His good friend and
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: fellow Lubbock resident, Buddy Holly, was convinced that Whaling was
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: as talented as Texas was big, which is why Buddy
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: played guitar Whaleen's first single.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Joe Les Blown.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: And then in December of nineteen fifty eight, Buddy Hawley,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: at the time one of rock and roll's pioneers, a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: twenty two year old megastar, came to his friend Waylon Jennings,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: one of your buddies Junior, and handed him a bass guitar.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: You got two weeks to learn that thing, Buddy told him,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and I'll see you in New.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: York for the tour. Tour New York the bass. Whalen
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: didn't play bass, not that.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: It was all that different from his instrument of choice, guitar,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: but Buddy believed in him.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Whyalan was the guy for.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: The job and a story He and another of Buddy's friend,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Tommy Alson, will be replacing Buddy's backing band, the Crickets,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: after they walked following a contract dispute. So Whyalan got
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: to learning Buddy songs on a four string? Then he
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: took a red eye from Texas to the Big City
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: where the rest of his life was there waiting for him.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: January nineteen fifty nine, Grand Central Station Waylon Jennings and
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Buddy Hawley squeezed themselves into a photo booth and dropped
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a coin in the slot. Whalan stuck a mental cigarette
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: in his mouth and lit it up. Buddy elbowed him, Whalem,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: give me a Salem. Whalan passed one over and the
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: camera began to flash. Both of them with huge grins
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: on their faces. Whalen wearing dark shades, Buddy in his
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: trademark horner and glasses. To Waylon Jennings, Buddy Hawley wasn't
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: just a good friend. He was what he called an.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Upper as were the shows they were playing.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Uppers ballrooms packed with teenagers dancing along to the Big
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Bobber singing Chantilly Lace, Ritchie Vallens doing lea Bamba before
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: finally pressing up tight against the stage when Buddy closed out.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Each night, the whole room feeding off that energy, Buddy
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Hawley's energy. Whalen, for one, couldn't get enough of it.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: He was addicted. Buddy Hawley was a drug. That drug.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: It powered Whalen and the others through a grueling tour,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: night after night, city after city, even in the Midwest
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: in February, in the dead of winter, forty below at
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: times forty below.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: The tour bus was a.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Meat locker and everyone was getting sick. Buddy decided to
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: rest up during the next leg of the trip from
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Iowa to North Dakota.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: He chartered a plane.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: He offered the two extra seats to his band, to
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Whalen and Tommy Allson, But just hours before the flight,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the big Bobber hit hard with the flu asked Whalen
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: if he would consider giving up a seat. Whalen could
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: see that the Bobber in his current state, needed a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: break from the bus more than he did. Whaling gladly
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: gave it up, and then Tommy also lost his seat
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: to a last minute coyed toss with Richie Allence.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Word gets the buddy.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Right before the plane took off, he found Whalen and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: as all good friends do, really good friends anyways, he
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: gave whale and shit.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: You're not going with me tonight? Huh?
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: But you chicking out? It's not like that. Whalen told
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: him the big boppers sick and it seemed like the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: right thing to do.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Then Buddy said, again with the shit talking, I hope
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: your damn buss freezes up well. Whalen responded, I hope
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: your old plane crashes.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: We interrupt this program for a special news bulleted bullet.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: Three young singers who soared to the heights of show
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: business on the current rock and roller trades were killed
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: today in the crash of a light plane in an
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: iows no flurring. The singers were identify this Richie falland seventeen,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Bummy Holly twenty two and J. P. Richardson is known
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: professionally as the Big Bubber. They're small Chartet plane crashed
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: in the Lonely farmyard about fifteen miles dowd west of
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: Mason City. Cause of the crist was due to inclement
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: weather conditions. The tails up coming from Action Central.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: New Buddy Hawley's death in nineteen fifty nine at just
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: twenty two years old, came as an incredible shock, not
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: least to his good buddy Waylon Jennings. Whalen was racked
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: with guilt, convinced that his last words ever spoken of
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Buddy were the reason that he died. I hope your
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: old plane crashes. That line, those words that echoed in
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: his head, A telltale heart beating from beneath the floorboard
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: of the tour bus, which continued to rattle along for America.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: The show must go on, and go on it did,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: with aggrieving Waylon Jennings made to perform as his dead
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: friend for the next few shows before an impersonator was
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: hired to play Buddy Hawley. Let me repeat that Buddy
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Hawley had just died.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Waylon Jennings was.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Made to perform posing as his dead friend Buddy Holly
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: for the next few shares before a Buddy Holly impersonator
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: was then hired. Whalen and Tommy also were promised money
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and time off to fly to Buddy's funeral, but that
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: never came to pass. A month later, whalan returned to
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: where we started with little to show for it, back
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: at Grand Central Station, this time not goofing off in
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a photo booth, but instead placing Buddy's base and amplifier
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: in a storage locker. He shut the door, locked it,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: and mailed the key to Buddy's widow. Then he began
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the long drive back to West Texas from New York City,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: but without his upper his buddy, so Whalen needed something
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: else to help him make it through those long nights
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: of white line fever. He managed to get by this time,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: not with a little help from his friends, but with
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: some pills he caught from a truck driver at a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: rest stop, and the sound of the ran old up
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: crackling out of the car's radio Waylon Jennings had been
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: awake for days, clutching a fistful of pills while three
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: different women waited for him in three different rooms, on
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: three different floors of the same hotel.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: They'd have to wait a little longer.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Right now, Whalen had to listen to his longtime drummer
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Richie Albright speak his mind, Whalen where she said, you're
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: going to kill yourself. Whalen couldn't argue with that. He
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: never knew when enough was enough. That went for pills
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: and later cocaine, that went for women, and that went
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: for music too Waylon Jennings was also a man who
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: didn't do what he didn't want to do. Not Caughton, picking,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: not school. He tried going back to the DJ booth,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: back to a normal life in Loving, Texas, but that
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: upper the Buddy Holly upper, the thrill of the road.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And of performing. He couldn't shake it.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Buddy Hawley was the gateway drug, and it didn't take
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: long for Whalan's Cadillac to drive right through that gate
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: over to the other side, where those aforementioned pills were waiting.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: White crosses, speckled birds, la turnarounds. In some parts of
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the American South, one greets a stranger by asking what
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: y'all got in the smoker. In Nashville in the nineteen sixties,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: it was y'all got any pills. Pills were the gasoline
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: in the music city tank, a cultural currency second only
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to the music. Nashville even had a popular physician on call,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: doctor Snapp, who wrote scripts on the regular above board
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: completely legal because this was a time when pills were
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: seen not so much as an addictive drug, but as
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: a necessary medicine to do your job.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: And if that sounds.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Naive, well Waylon Jennings, like Johnny Cash and many others
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: making their way in Nashville at this time, was little
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: more than a naive kid from the country who didn't
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: know any better. And also, like Johnny Cash, Whalen was
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: a fiend for pills, so much so that when the
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: two of them were roommates in Nashville, they had to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: keep their respective stashes hidden.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: From each other.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to find those goddamn pills hosts. Johnny Cash
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: was inside Whalen's car, on his back up front of
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the floor, ripping apart the interior. He yanked the paneling down.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Nothing he knew they were here. What he didn't know
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: is that they were here yesterday. Whalen never used the
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: same hiding place twice. Stashing pills was a fluid game.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: This week, Whalen had unscrewed a light switch panel in
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the wall of their shared apartment and dumped a big
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: bag of pills in the cavity boom. Cash was never
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: going to find him.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: The only problem was.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: When Whalen really needed them, he was going to have
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to kick a hole in the drywall to get them out.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: But hold up, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's back up.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: Before Nashville and after Buddy Holly, there was Arizona, a
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: far cry from Whalen's West Texas roots, and a place
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: where from the jump, too much of everything was never
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: enough and everything Remember that's drugs, women, and music.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: They went together.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: In Phoenix, Whalen played every Tuesday through Saturday night at
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: a place called j D's, and he started fooling around
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: with a woman named Lynn Mitchell. Lynn Mitchell was not
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Whalen's wife, not yet anyway, His wife at the time,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Maxine was back in Texas with the kids for them now,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: And as you can imagine, given the fact that Maxine
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and Whalen were not living in the same state, the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: writing was on the wall.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: It was only a matter of time.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Before Lynn Mitchell here Phoenix Lynn Mitchell became the second
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: missus Jennings, and then only a matter of time after
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that before Lynn joined Maxine as another ex collecting Whalen's calimony.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: You see the pattern here.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: But at the time, life was like a country song
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: for Waylon Jennings, the kind he played at jds where
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: he made his name, the kind he played out on
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the road where he made his reputation, a reputation built
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: on nights like this one at a roadhouse club, more
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: like a huge barn in the middle of nowhere. The
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: show was over. Whalen was waiting to get paid, but
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: there would be no payment tonight. Tonight there was just
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: a shotgun, locked and loaded and the club owner's insistence
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that Whalen get the fuck out.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Fine.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Whalen wasn't about to put up a fight, not here.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: He and his band, the Whalers, not like Bob Marley's band,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: but the Whalers as in wayn as in way low.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you get anyway.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: The Whalers, along with Whylan's songwriting friend Billy Joe Shaver,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: piled into Whalan's bus and hit the road. Whalan drove
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: and the bus made its way up a dirt road
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: toward the highway. The club behind them were seeding in
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the distance. Suddenly there was a huge explosion. Billy Joe
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Shaver jumped in his seat and spun around. Out the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: bus's window. He could see the back half of the
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: barn engulfed in flames. Holy shit, Whalen, did you see that?
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Whalan kept his hands on the wheel and his.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Eyes on the road. I didn't see nothing.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Word traveled just like the smoke traveled up to the
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: heavens from that burning barn. One you did not fuck
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: with Whalon Jennings and two Waylon Jennings was the next
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: big thing in country music.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Nashville agreed to that second point.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Specifically, Chad Atkins aka the Country Gentleman aka one of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the architects of.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: The then modern Nashville sound.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: He signed Whalen to the RC Victor label and then
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: began to have him cut records that were more Chad
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Atkins's vision than his own folk country Love of the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Common People, The Taker, Slash Tulsa. Some of these are
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: great albums that Waylon Jennings made inside the Nashville system,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: but none of them truly.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Captured who he really was.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: That would come later, and it didn't come without a fight.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: The fight started with a twenty two magnum pistol Whyalan
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: brought with him to the studio one afternoon. All these
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Nashville cats kept hitting those pickup notes on their instruments,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: like the Pedal Steel Player doing it now. That's to say,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: playing notes during the intro of a song the Dovetail
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and at the first full measure when the singer starts
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the verse, totally unnecessary to Whyalan's ears, You're cluttering up
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: a good song with this bullshit. Whylan didn't want to
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: hear any pickup notes on his records anymore. The Pedal
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Steel Player, though, he kept playing them until Whylan cocked
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: his gun. The next son of a bitch that hits
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: one of them goddamn pickup notes is going to get
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: his goddamn fingers blown off. Cooler heads soon prevailed, the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: coolest belonging to Neil Rushan, who made his name doing
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Miles Davis's taxes that was now managing Whalan. Neil Russian
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: was a big deal because he single handedly discovered that
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: RCA was screwing Whalen over RCA said Whalen owed them money,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: but Neil Russian proved it was actually the other way around.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, RCA had failed to comply with.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: The renewal clause in Whalen's contract, which meant now Whalan
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: had the upper hand when it came to the negotiations
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, Whalan and Neil Russian sat in Chad
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Atkins's office, across the table from RCA executives. Whalan wanted
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: freedom to do what he wanted, and that freedom, in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Whalen's mind, should include an extra twenty five thousand dollars
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: in his coffers. It wasn't just about the respect that
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: extra money provided. Whalan needed it. He had stacks of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: unpaid bills, alimony to not one, not two, but now
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: three ex wives.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: RCA wasn't sympathetic, and they weren't budging either.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Their final offer was on the table to Whyalon to
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Neil the offer was still twenty five thousand dollars short.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Both sides sat at the table in silence. Fucked this,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Whyalan had to take a piss? He didn't say anything
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: about it, He just stood up and walked out. Minutes later,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: his bladder relieved, he emerged from the bathroom to find
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the meeting over and Neil Russian waiting for him in
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the hallway. Whyalan, He said, you're a fucking genius walking
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: out of that meeting like that.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: That was the move we needed. What do you mean move?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I decided to take a piss?
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: The ol Russian smiled, well, that my friend was a
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: twenty five thousand dollars piss. When Whalan stood up and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: left the negotiating table in silence, the suits at RCA
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: freaked out. They asked Neil what Whalan was doing, and Neil,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: in all honesty, told him that he had no clue.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: You know, Whalan, he's crazy. He'll do anything. Hell, maybe
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: he's walking away right now and never coming back. RCA's
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: hand was forced. Whalen got his money in his autonomy,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: all of which then gave the world honky Tonk heroes
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: something like Whyalan's nineteenth studio album, but arguably the first
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to present Whylon Jennings for real, the Nashville outlier, a
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: heat packing, burn burning outlaw who took twenty five thousand
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: dollars pisses in the RCA bathroom. The guy who mashed
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: together country and rock and roll like Elvis had done
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: with country and blues all those years ago. Something new,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: something different, something daring, just like Whalon himself. Now moving
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: from one thing to the next. First Buddy Hawley, then pills,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and now to the big game where the stakes were
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: higher than the uppers were too.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this word word word.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Waylon Jennings dumped the quarter ounce of cocaine into the blender,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: followed by a gram of speed. In one kaylude, he
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: hit the button that read puree or chop or liquefied,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: didn't matter, they all did the same thing. He then
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: poured the blended concoction into an empty aspirin bottle, which
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: he tucked inside a cigarette pack and stuffed into the
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: top pocket of his vest, close enough to his face
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: so that all he had to do when he wanted
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: a bump was to stick a straw down into the
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: pocket and the other end of said straw up his nose.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: But when he came to cocaine, Waylon Jennings didn't do bumps.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: As his son Terry wrote in his memoir, Whalen Jennings
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: did thumps, waking himself up from a dead sleep at
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: two three in the morning to do more. Buying it
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: at one hundred dollars a gram, fifteen hundred dollars a day.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: You do the math.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: He did enough blow in one afternoon for an entire
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: football team, Oakland, California Raiders versus Chiefs. Halftime coach John
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Madden hit the locker room and pounded an entire bottle
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of Maylock's. His team, the Oakland Raiders, were down six nothing,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: His players are beat up. One of his defensive tackles,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a brick shitthouse of a man, was puking his guts out.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Madden began to draft the motivational pep talk in his head,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: but the Raiders needed something stronger.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Than a pep talk. Thank God for Waylon.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Jennings here now in the locker room at halftime visiting
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: his friend Kenny the snake Stabler, the Raiders quarterback. Whalen
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: had the remedy as did Whalen's buddy Deacon Proudfoot, Hell's Angel,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: current head of Whalen's security detail. That remedy, so to speak,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: was being doled out in the bathroom thumps of cocaine
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: that Whalen and Deacon were handing back and forth over
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the stalls. One line, two lines, three to four shotgun style.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: That's half a gram up, one nostril and one more
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of the other. Halftime was over in the Oakland Raiders,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: high on Whalon Jennings's cocaine, went back out onto the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: field at the Coliseum and proceeded to beat the ever
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: loving shit out of the Kansas City Chiefs. Whalen, like
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the Oakland Raiders in the second half, was untouchable, not
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: so much living outside the law as he was creating
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: his own law. The music was undeniable. Wanted the Outlaws,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a nineteen seventy six compilation album featuring songs by Whalon,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Whalen's pals Willie Nelson and Tompall Glazer, and Whalen's fourth
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and final wife, Jesse Colter, was the first country record
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in history to sell a million copies. His next string
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: of albums, How Are You Ready for the Country Whalan
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Live Ol Whalan and Whalen and Willie all.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Hit number one on the country chart.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: His success was hard fought, it was sweet, but when
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: it came to Whalen's finances, success wasn't enough to break
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: even alimony, back taxes, all manner of delinquents putting a
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: strain on the payroll, the kind of situation that leads
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to taking bigger chances and bigger risks. August twenty fourth,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, American Sound Recording Studio, Nashville, Little over
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a week since the King himself, Elvis Presley, took his
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: last seat on a porcelain throne, Whalen was eager to
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: finish laying down this harmony track on his wife Jesse's
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: new song. Equally eager to then dip into the stash
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: of cocaine sitting at his feet, one kilo he just
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: had sent to him through the mail drugs via the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: United States postal system, Just the sort of brass ball's
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: outlaw move that only Waylon Jennings could pull off. Or
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: so the thinking went. On the other side of the
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: double glass wall in the control room, where Whalen's drummer
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Richie Albright was running the recording session. The outside door
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: flew open. Two men stepped inside, DEA agents who had
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: been tracking Willlam's package of cocaine. Richie was fast, He
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: thought fast, acted fast. He leaned back against the recording
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: console and pressed his hand down on the talkback button.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Now this is an important detail. The American Sound Recording
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: studio was equipped with a Harrison mixing console, which, unlike
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: most mixing consoles at the time, had a talkback button that,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: when pressed, allowed both the control room where Richie was
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: in the studio room where whalan was to simultaneously talk
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: to and hear each other. Other consoles only allowed for
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: one way communication. So Richie Albright, without the DEA agents knowing,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: was allowing Whalen through the headphones he was wearing in
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the studio to hear this entire conversation with the FEDS
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: as it unfolded. So Richie says, can I help you boys?
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: This is a closed session. Agent number one goes, what
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: happened to that package that was just delivered? Richie goes,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: do y'all have a warrant?
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Agent Number one says, we have a warrant for when
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Jennings's arrest. Richie listen, boys, I'd love to help you,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: but we're right in the middle of one last vocal take.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: This place is like two hundred bucks an hour. Who
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: just finished the take? And then Whalen is all yours.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Agent number two looked at Agent number one and gave
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: a kurt nod of approval. Richie ran the tape from
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the top and Whalen began to sing again. Halfway through
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the chorus, Richie stopped the tape and pressed on the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Harrison talked back button again. Whalen, I'm sorry, hass but
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: there's something wrong with your microphone. Let me come in
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: there real quick and swap it out for another. The
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: agents waited impatiently. Richie slipped into the studio room, replaced
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the mic, and then, very carefully, without anyone noticing, removed
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the bags of cocaine from the box at Whalen's feet
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and slid them down the front of his jeans. Minutes later,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: he was flushing the contents down the toilet in the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: studio bathroom while the DEA agents grilled Whalen.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Where I come from?
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Whalen said, possession means got it, and you boys ain't it.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: The DEA didn't have to have anything. They knew Whalen
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: was dirty. They arrested him anyway, charging him with possession
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: and conspiracy, and the case dragged on for months, months
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: in which Whalan's paranoia ran as high as his continuing
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: drug and take. He checked every phone for bugs. He
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: hired former FBI agents to sweep his house, but the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: case against him only made his reputation stronger. He was
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a modern day Robin Hood or a Billy the Kid.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: He used that rep to his advantage with his next single,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Don't you Think the Outlaw Bits.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Done get out of hand?
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: The song essentially confessed to the crime he was currently fighting,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and it peaked at number five on the country chart.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: That song the attention, None of it got Whyalon Jennings
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: what he really needed. Neither did his new role on
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the Dukes of Hazard as the balladeer singer of the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: popular TV show's theme song. Whalen needed money, the kind
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: of money that could support all those ex wives. The
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: attack man a bloated payroll, and that wasn't all. When
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the government finally dropped the cocaine charges, Whalon it had
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: something like one hundred thousand dollars in legal fees his
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: bank account balance was at negative eight hundred and sixty grand.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not even sure how that's possible. The bank froze everything.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: By the early nineteen eighties. The only thing higher than
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Waylon Jennings was his impossibly tall mountain of debt. No
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: matter how dire his financial situation, Waylon Jennings surrounded himself
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with people who believed in him, just like Buddy Hawley
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: had believed in him all those years before. These days
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: it was the Hell's Angels motorcycle Club. The bikers saw
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it in Whalon Jennings, a kindred spirit. They were drawn
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: to him, like so many others, who, let's be honest,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: were part of the larger problem, at least when it
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: came to Whalen's bottom line. But the Angels were tough
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: guys reinforcing Whalen's air of toughness, like Deacon Proudfoot and
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Boomer Baker.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Boomer had a mouthful of gold.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Teeth, and he walked with a cane that had a
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: gold skull on top. He was there to protect and serve,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: like on the night he stood watch outside Whalen's hotel room,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: armed to the teeth, guns, knives, a grenade, even on
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: account of the rumor going around that a rival motorcycle club,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: in their quest to become bigger and more powerful than
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the Angels, had put a hit out on Whealan or
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a member of his family, a family that Boomer took
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: care of, not least of which was Whalen's youngest son, Shooter,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: now a great musician and producer in his own right,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: but back in the day, a little toddler being raised
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: by outlaws, outlaws like Boomer Baker, outlaws like his father,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: a father who is now watching as a son. Shooter,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: just three years old, found one of Whalen's coke straws
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and stuck it up his nose, doing like his daddy did.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: That shook Whalen. Being a badass was one thing, being
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: a bad role model with something else entirely.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Whalen decided to rent a.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: House in Arizona, not in Phoenix, where he first made
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: his bones as a performer, but way out in the
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: desert where he was at the mercy of the elements.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Zero distractions, no band members, no bikers, just Whalen and
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: his wife Jesse. He had to clean up everything, his
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: finances and also his habit. March nineteen eighty four, Whalen
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: climbed into his tour bus and did as much cocaine
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: as he could handle, one last hurrah. Then he exited
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: the bus and walked into his rented house, leaving about
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: twenty grand worth of cocaine behind. Call it cold turkey
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: with a safety net, a little insurance in case what
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: he was about to do proved too difficult.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: And it was difficult.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: As soon as that final I wore off, his bones
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: began to ache, his entire body shook violently. He was sick,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: He couldn't sleep. He knew he could end this awful
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: feeling just by going back to the bus where piles
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: of cocaine were waiting, but he didn't. He'd made up
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: his mind Whyalon Jennings didn't do what he didn't want
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: to do, Not picking cotton, not going to school, not
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: conforming to the Nashville machine, and not cocaine, not anymore.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: A month later, Whalan stepped foot out of that rented home.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: A new man. He told Jesse to get rid of
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: the drugs.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: She dumped all twenty thousand dollars worth down the drain,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: yelling Hallelujah as she did it, Ecstatic to her husband.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Whylon Jennings was a survivor, a trailblazer, a total badass,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and he was no longer a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and this this Disgraceland.
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: All right, thank you for hanging out with me and
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: the one and only Waylan Jennings.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcast listeners.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: If you have not already, please turn on auto downloads
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: so you don't.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Miss any of our episodes.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: Listen. Waylon Jennings complete in total lunatic, known as one
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: of the outlaw country singers. But my question of the
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: week for you, guys, is was Wayland Jennings the most
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: punk rock of the country singers?
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: If not, who was?
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: Hit me up a lot of candidates six one seven
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: nine oh six six six three eight. I want your answers.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: You can leave a voicemail or a text. You can
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: also DM me at Disgrace lamp Pod. Email me Disgrace
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: Lampod at gmail dot com. We'll play some of your
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: answers on the upcoming after party episodes. All right, guys,
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: I gotta take off, got some credits coming.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Up right now.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis credits for this episode can be
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracempod dot com.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it, and
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: if not, you can become a member right now by
• 33:09
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• 33:14
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• 33:18
  Speaker 1: one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episode,
• 33:23
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• 33:27
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• 33:32
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• 33:34
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• 33:38
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