Waylon (18 page)

She never understood what made me keep going after the sound I heard in my head, and why I wanted to perform so bad. Which
meant she never understood me.

* * *

The first place I landed when I got to town was Harlan Howard’s Wilderness Music. If the nights were when the wild ones hung
out and roared, the daytime trips took care of most of Music Row’s business. I would carry my guitar and visit the music publishers,
like Tree, where Roger was based, and go from there to Acuff-Rose, or Cedarwood, or Central. We’d play each other songs and
sit in on each other’s recordings. Session-hopping, we called it. You wound up in the corner of a lot of strange records that
way.

Don Bowman was “West Coast starvation buddies” with Harlan, and so was Bobby Bare. Harlan was everybody’s friend. His childhood
hero had been Ernest Tubb, and he hadn’t grown up much since then. In fact, he thought that if you were really into country
songs, Ernest probably had more influence than Hank Williams. Depending on how close you lived to Texas, he may just have
been right.

He had become Nashville’s leading songwriter in the early sixties and had a catalogue of Harlan songs a mile long: “Heartaches
by the Number,” “I Fall to Pieces,” “Busted.” I’ve covered over seventy of them myself and even did a whole album called
Waylon Sings 0l’ Harlan.

He loved fishing, and there’s a shot of us in a boat together on that record. Despite the photographic evidence, and it might
be noted that I’m sitting there with a guitar while Harlan is holding his pole, I didn’t care much for relaxing in a boat
with a line dangling over the edge waiting for a bite. I didn’t have that much patience.

I also remember the time when Barbara and I had come out to Center Hill with Bobby Bare. We were fishing with live spring
lizards, and he told me to bait my hook. I said, “I can’t stand to touch them things.”

They had a head like a snake. “Well, don’t think snake, think bait,” he told me. I tried to reach in the bucket. They were
all squirmy. I’d get my hand only halfway in before I’d grab a lizard, panic, and sling it out. Finally I just gave up and
sat back while Bobby snared three wiggling springers on a single hook. He reared back and cast it over yonder. Barbara was
in the front of the boat with her hair pinned down and wearing a wiglet. He hooked her hair and threw the wiglet way off in
the water, much like he once hooked a guy’s earlobe, before piercing for men became socially acceptable. “Let’s go in” was
about all I could say.

I was writing more and more, and Harlan talked to me continually about the craft, giving me advice. He used Jim Reeves as
an example of “smart” singers who knew how to “snoop out a song,” to pick material. He even figured out a way to pitch songs
to me. He’d say, “Here’s a song I wrote, and it’s a great song, but I wrote it for somebody else, and you can’t do it, but
I sure would like for you to hear it.” He nailed me every time.

Probably because he liked fishing, he taught me about hook lines. You can write a great song, but if you want an added guarantee,
you’ve got to bait that hook. A title is important, but a hook line is what people remember; and singers can’t resist a good
hook line and sinker. Sometimes he’d confuse me about my writing. “You can’t say the same word,” he’d emphasize, or “If you
take time, you can find another word.” Harlan didn’t like near-rhymes. He was a craftsman, and I respected that. He was particularly
into titles. Harlan thought if you heard a song on the radio and the disc jockey didn’t tell you who it was, you should be
able to guess the title and head immediately to the nearest record store.

He wrote every morning, till it was time to hang out. I’ve never been able to be that kind of productive writer. I’ve got
to have something that really turns me on to the idea, which is why so many of my songs are autobiographical. I’ll take things
that happen to me and try to understand them, sometimes making them sadder or happier to encompass more of an audience; a
writer’s prerogative. Harlan was different. He wouldn’t write if he was troubled or upset. In his mind, that was frivolous,
though he’d remember the feeling and tap into it when he needed the emotion. An exception was “Yours Love,” which was a hit
for me in 1968. He had written a poem to his to-be wife as a wedding present, and then, as he said, “writers are such sluts.”
He put a melody to it and thought of it as his best, most positive love song.

He found ways to get his creative juices flowing through the music, not through the use of diet pills. Paradoxically, Harlan
saved them for his fishing trips, when he wanted to stay up all night under the stars and cast for bass. He didn’t like to
write on speed; he thought it would get him past the point of sensible. He was usually right, me included.

Harlan used to write without a guitar, just holding a legal pad. More than most, the strength of country music is its lyrics.
I filled up pages and pages. I’d write about every notion that came to mind. When I ran out of paper, I’d scribble words on
anything: napkins, matchbooks, dollar bills. I didn’t worry how to sing the songs. Melodies form a marriage with the words.
They’ll tell you where they want to go, and you can always change them. Harlan’s first hit was “Pick Me Up on Your Way Down,”
and when he sang it for you, his voice would rise on the first three words and fall on the last four. It wouldn’t make sense
otherwise. Your melody goes where the words take you. I depend on a lyric to give me a melody, and a good lyric will pull
the melody out of you.

You never knew who you’d see when you walked into his office in the 800 block of Seventeenth Avenue. Roger or Willie or Mel
Tillis, back when he was first getting started as a singer, would be sitting around. Hank Cochran might be leaned up against
the wall. Conway Twitty pulled up a chair when he stopped by, or Lefty Frizzell. Even Tex Ritter. Sometimes we’d have unplanned
parties. It was like Grand Central Station.

That’s where I first met Don Davis. Don had been a steel player for Hank Williams, and was married to Anita Carter when I
came to town. The greatest practical joker on earth, he was running Wilderness at the time for Harlan. Lefty Frizzell and
Dallas Frazier were notorious for throwing up when they got drunk. They’d make loud moaning crying noises. So Don got them
in the back seat of a car, took them over the roughest stretch of road he could find, and had them drink warm beer. When they
started hollering “Pull over, I’m getting sick,” he recorded it. That tape made the rounds of many a Nashville session.

You could reach up and touch the stars in Nashville then, or at least get ribbed by them. Though some were a little aloof,
most of the bigger names made me feel welcome. They kind of laughed at the “star” thing. I liked that. Carl Smith could make
me real nervous. I tried my damnedest to look like him and sing like him; I e”en combed my hair like his, and I didn’t want
him to notice. I knew he liked me a lot; he’d insist on me being on his tours. I wanted to tell him he was my hero, but if
I said anything complimentary, he’d be real hard on me. “You little pipsqueak. Don’t be trying to suck up to me.” He let me
know I was really all right by giving me a rough time.

Porter Wagoner was another one who was encouraging. He was already a big star, all bright suits and television lights. There
wasn’t a hair out of place on his head, but when he sang “Satisfied Mind,” you knew he wasn’t just a flashy dresser. He was
perhaps the most even guy I’ve ever met in my life. I can’t imagine what he thought of me, looking like a tramp. In this crowd,
I was the ugly duckling. Faron Young used to call me a greasy sonofabitch. They’d all tease me a lot; you can tell when somebody
accepts you. I had all that hair, and Faron was losing his. He always told me, “You laugh, but yours’ll be goin’ one of these
days, too.” Now, every time I see him, I point at my head, as if to say “It ain’t started yet.”

You’d sit around and talk Nashville shop till maybe it was past eleven, and then you could head over to an illegal afterhours
bar that someone had set up in a house down the Row. The Professional Club: You knocked at the door and they looked through
a peephole, and if they knew you, they let you in. There was a pool table and blackout drapes over the windows. They’d be
open all night, or until everybody left, and then, just as they locked the entrance, along would come John Cash with Glen
Douglas Tubb, Ernest’s nephew, to break down the door.

One night, Faron got hit with a cue ball there. He had to have his head shaved on one side, which didn’t help his hair. Another
time I dropped some cigarette ashes down the pocket of my new deerskin jacket. I’m on fire! It flared up and burnt the sleeves
right from my body. I kept patting at the flames, sitting there, too high to think of taking it off.

We were swarming everywhere. Sleep was a waste of time. It was so exciting, all that stuff happening around you, that you
were afraid to take a nap, scared you’d miss something. Napoleon only slept three hours a night; that was my big excuse to
stay up. The cops would never bother you. They knew we were taking pills and getting high, but they’d just come by and wave,
say hi, because we didn’t hurt anybody. The only people we were screwing up was ourselves, and we didn’t seem to care. They
didn’t mess with us at all.

Music Row was a neighborhood of houses, along tree-lined streets that made it seem more friendly. You didn’t have to have
appointments. You could stop by to see Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins, and ask if they were busy. You were welcome everywhere,
if you were welcome anywhere, though if they wanted to ignore you, they sure could.

I had brought the Waylors with me. I needed a band for road-work, and they were my friends; in Tommy’s case, my brother. He
was playing bass for me. But “sidemen” were not welcome on Music Row. We were in some big shot’s (don’t forget to dot the
i
) office one time, and whenever Richie or Jerry would make a comment or ask a question, the guy behind the desk would look
at me and answer it. After a couple rounds of this, I could see the hurt in the band’s eyes.

The next day I was going back to the same office. “C’mon guys, let’s go,” I said. “Nah,” they answered. “We’re going to hang
around the hotel.”

They had been with me through thick and thin. I tried to let the powers that be know how I felt. We’ve been hungry together,
I told them. My band is here for the long run.

“You don’t bring your own cliques to Nashville,” they told me, and “you don’t bring sidemen down on Music Row.” I took it
all in.

“Those guys are with me,” I said. “They’ve been everywhere with me. If they can’t be here, then I won’t be here. If they’re
not welcome, I’m not welcome either.” I walked out.

It was the same closed society at sessions. They didn’t understand the concept of a band. They let me use Richie, or they
let me use Jerry Gropp, and then treated them like aliens. It was like you either played the road or sessions. They actually
got mad when I wanted to use my band on my recordings. “Well, road musicians can’t play in the studio.”

I’d say, “Why not?”

“Well, they’re just not smooth enough.”

I always wanted a live sound in the studio. Wonderful, I thought. Now we’re getting somewhere. I liked things that weren’t
perfect. It was okay if the microphones leaked into each other, like a stage performance. I wanted to hear Richie’s foot drum,
loud and clear. I wanted to feel some excitement.

I could never play with a band that moves on the beat, or under the beat. I couldn’t get into it. It has to be on the edge.
My music is built on edge; that’s the rock and roller in me. When I’d hear it on the beat, it felt like it was dragging. I
needed it to push. The Waylors may not have been great musicians, but neither was I. Neither was all that slick shit I was
hearing. That about wore me out. I couldn’t even find a place to come in.

Guys like Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb and the Texas Troubadours—they had a style. You knew it was one of their records
from the first intro. There was a certain weight in the guitars, a kick to the rhythm, an authority in the singing. They didn’t
sound like everybody else.

I had to figure Chet out. When I first got there, whether we worked together or just sat around and talked, he was real quiet.
It didn’t take me long to understand how he responded to things, to read him, to see what reaction I could get out of him
and know that I had him.

For Chet, a smile meant “that sounds pretty good.” A grin was wonderful out of him in the studio. If he said “Man, I liked
that,” it was probably going to be a number-one record. I often fantasized about being out in the studio recording, and Chet
getting up in the control room, standing on top of the console, jumping through the plate-glass window, rising up, wiping
the blood off and yelling “Goddamn, that is a smash!”

And I’d say, “Chet, I’d like to try it once more. I think I can do it a little better.”

It thrilled me to see his name on a record next to mine. If he thought you were good, something had to be there. Everybody
knew that. Chet wasn’t overly demonstrative, but he was always listening. He had a kindness about him. He may have been shy,
yet he knew when it was the right time to not say anything. He made me work at arranging the songs. He’d say, “You do it.
You’re doing good.” If he saw me at a wall, he’d step in with a suggestion, but otherwise he let me find my way within the
framework he set up.

That was part of the problem. It was his framework, part of a Nashville sound that had been engraved in stone. They had a
system. It was like an assembly line, and they rolled off records like clockwork, working more for efficiency than emotion,
a song per hour and maybe a fourth if there was ten minutes till the three-hour session was scheduled to end.

Chet wanted me to be myself, but he wanted me to be myself with musicians he knew were great, that he’d been relying on. Chet
had his comfort zone: a drummer that never wavered, a piano solo that tickled the same ivories, a smooth backing vocal from
the Jordanaires or the Browns or the Anita Kerr singers.