Willie, Waylon, and the Boys

Willie, Waylon, and the Boys
Author: Brian Fairbanks
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2024-06-04
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0306831104

The tragic and inspiring story of the leaders of Outlaw country and their influence on today’s Alt-County and Americana superstars, tracing a path from Waylon Jennings’ survival on the Day the Music Died through to the Highwaymen and on to the current creative and commercial explosion of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Zach Bryan, Jason Isbell, and the Highwomen. On February 2, 1959, Waylon Jennings, bassist for his best friend, the rock star Buddy Holly, gave up his seat on a charter flight. Jennings joked that he hoped the plane, leaving without him, would crash. When it did, killing all aboard, on "the Day the Music Died," he was devastated and never fully recovered. Jennings switched to playing country, creating the Outlaw movement and later forming the Highwaymen supergroup, the first in country music, with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. The foursome battled addiction, record companies, ex-wives, violent fans, and the I.R.S. and D.E.A., en route to unprecedented mainstream success. Today, their acolytes Kacey Musgraves, Ryan Bingham, Sturgill Simpson, and Taylor Swift outsell all challengers, and country is the most popular of all genres. In this fascinating new book, Brian Fairbanks draws a line from Buddy Holly through the Outlaw stars of the 60s and 70s, all the way to the country headliners and more diverse, up-and-coming Nashville rebels of today, bringing the reader deep into the worlds of not only Cash, Nelson, Kristofferson, and Jennings but artists like Chris Stapleton, Simpson, Bingham, and Isbell, stadium-filling masters whose stories have not been told in book form, as well as new, diverse artists like the Highwomen, Brittney Spencer, and Allison Russell. Thought-provoking and meticulously researched, Willie, Waylon, and the Boys ultimately shows how a twenty-one-year-old bass-playing plane crash survivor helped changed the course of American music.

Outlaw

Outlaw
Author: Michael Streissguth
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2013-06-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062038206

Outlaw by acclaimed author Michael Streissguth follows the stories of three legends as they redefined country music: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. Streissguth delves into the country music scene in the late '60s and early '70s, when these rebels found themselves in Music City writing songs and vying for record deals. Channeling the unrest of the times, all three Country Music Hall of Famers resisted the music industry’s unwritten rules and emerged as leaders of the outlaw movement that ultimately changed the recording industry. Outlaw offers a broad portrait of the outlaw movement in Nashville that includes a diverse secondary cast of characters, such as Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell, Kinky Friedman, and Billy Joe Shaver, among others. With archival photographs throughout, Outlaw is a comprehensive examination of a fascinating shift in country music, and the three unbelievably talented musicians who forged the way.

Luckenbach Texas

Luckenbach Texas
Author: Becky Crouch Patterson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2018
Genre: Luckenbach (Tex.)
ISBN: 9780692127285

Me and Sister Bobbie

Me and Sister Bobbie
Author: Willie Nelson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2020
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1984854135

"Abandoned by their parents as toddlers, Willie and Bobbie Nelson found their love of music almost immediately through their grandparents, who raised them in a dusty small town in east Texas. Their close relationship ... is the longest-lasting bond in either of their lives. In alternating chapters, this ... dual memoir weaves together their lives as they experienced them both side-by-side and apart with powerful, emotional stories from growing up, playing music in public for the first time, and the trials they each faced in adulthood as Willie pursued a songwriting career and Bobbie faced a series of challenging relationships and a musical career that only took off when attitudes about women began to change in Texas"--

A Grail Quest

A Grail Quest
Author: Kathleen Ball Ph.D.
Publisher: Winsome Entertainment Group LLC
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2023-07-18
Genre: History
ISBN:

Grail Quests often begin with what seems like normal travel adventures, but then suddenly turn into divine synchronistic events that makes one feel as though they’re being guided by the Universe.I was to find out, two years later, that many local people knew about this cave. Teenagers even partied in it, as we could see from their graffiti, so what was the big secret? The cave’s location was obviously not a secret, but apparently no one understood the significance of that specific cross. What the cave was carved out for turned out to be the secret, helping me to later understand why the Templars dug it out in the middle of nowhere.I returned that evening to our pousada a different person. Something had fundamentally changed within me. I felt that somehow, this discovery was part of my destiny. The Universe had unmistakably directed me to this cav

Picnic

Picnic
Author: Dave Dalton Thomas
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2024-09-02
Genre: Music
ISBN: 164843195X

In 1973, a forty-year-old country musician named Willie Nelson, inspired by a failed music festival the year before, decided he was going to hold his own party. He would stage it in the same remote and rocky field where the previous festival had withered. And he’d do it in July: not the hottest part of the Central Texas summer, but “damn sure close enough,” according to music journalist Dave Dalton Thomas. As unlikely as it seemed in 1973, Willie kept the event going, minus a year off here and there, for half a century. Thomas has attended nearly every Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic since 1995, finding joy in an event some music reporters have compared to “death marches and prison labor.” For the last 20 years, Thomas has researched the history of the Picnic, chronicling the brutal heat and the quirky and sometimes illegal antics of fans, musicians, and others. Thomas has watched the Picnic evolve over the decades, as Willie and his audience have evolved. He has interviewed participants, including artists, organizers, promoters, and even a few colorful hangers-on. While reviewing ten of the Picnics in detail—each chosen for its significance in the overarching development of the event—Thomas also includes basic facts about each gathering, from the beginning to the present, with the addition of pertinent information about the “off years,” when the Picnic was on temporary hiatus for one reason or another. In his introduction, Thomas quotes country musician Johnny Bush as he recalls trying to talk Nelson out of the notion of holding the first Picnic. “Willie, there ain’t no way in hell a bunch of cowboys are going to come out in the hundred-degree heat to watch us pick our guitars.” As Thomas records them, Bush’s next words were “he proved me wrong.”

Waylon

Waylon
Author: Terry Jennings
Publisher: Hachette Books
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2016-04-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316390097

"This book is a terrific tribute, from a son to his father."---Willie Nelson "I'm so excited about Terry's new book."---Dolly Parton From the Foreword by Ken Mansfield "There are many stories about Waylon . . . the family man, the creative genius man, the quiet man, the king-of-the-six-day-roar-man, the uncommon man, the legendary man, the bad-ass man . . . they are all in this book." In a signed copy of his autobiography, Texas-born country "Outlaw" icon Waylon Jennings penned a personal note to his son Terry: "I did my best. Now it's your turn." Two decades later, Terry Jennings finally completes the true story of his father's remarkable, unvarnished life with Waylon: Tales of My Outlaw Dad. Born when Waylon was only nineteen, Terry came of age just as Waylon's career hit the stratosphere with hits like "I've Always Been Crazy" and "Good Hearted Woman," one of his famous Willie Nelson duets. Terry dropped out of high school and joined his dad on tour, and the two became more like brothers than father and son. On the road, they toured with legends like Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Jessi Colter, Waylon's fourth and final wife. Together father and son led a hard-partying lifestyle centered around music, women, and drugs. Waylon's success--critical acclaim, bestselling albums, sold-out tours, and even TV stardom on The Dukes of Hazzard--was at times eclipsed by his demons, three divorces, crippling debt, and a depression that Terry traces to the premature death of Buddy Holly. (Waylon was supposed to be on Holly and Ritchie Valens's doomed flight.) Through it all, Terry worked on the touring crew, helped manage Waylon's career, and became one of his father's closest confidantes. Debunking myths and sharing incredible never-before-told stories, this book is a son's loving and strikingly honest portrait of his father, "the greatest Outlaw country musician to grace this earth" and an unlikely but devoted family man. Waylon: Tales of My Outlaw Dad will resonate for generations of fans.

Legendary Texas Storytellers

Legendary Texas Storytellers
Author: Jim Gramon
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publications
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2002-10-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1556229399

Storytelling is alive and well in Texas! Let storyteller and biographer Jim Gramon give you a personal introduction to some of his legendary storytelling friends.