MUSL-1640 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Waylon Jennings, Dripping Springs, Texas, Atlantic Records
15 May 2018
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1. Kris Kristofferson
a. Refusal to assign blame, lack of judgement of other people (no finger pointing)
i. Similar to Tom T. Hall
b. Wrote “Sunday Morning Coming Down” by Johnny Cash
c. “Jesus was a Capricorn”
i. Cover of Rolling Stone
d. Believed that he had a creative gift and has to use it
i. Battle between pride and regret: glad he has the songs but it wasn’t nice
to his wife and let a lot of things slide in the service of creativity
e. Idolized Johnny Cash
i. Felt Cash was killing himself with amphetamines, but also producing
remarkable work
ii. There was a notion that you need drugs and alcohol to write songs, but
this probably isn’t true
f. “To Beat the Devil”
i. About the creative struggle
ii. Devil visits a Nashville bar and finds a depressed songwriter. Devil says if
you waste your time writing for people who don’t listen, who’s gonna
hear? Who’s gonna care?
iii. Dedicated to Johnny Cash
2. Tom T. Hall
a. Mentored Kris Kristofferson
b. Moved to Nashville January 1, 1964
c. T was added when he got a recording contract, and there was already Tom Paul
and Tom Tall
d. Looked at songwriting as a job
e. Wrote silly songs, “little darlin’ songs,” with no resounding success
f. Read Flannery O’Connor, was inspired
g. Started writing songs about his own experiences in his hometown in Kentucky,
his publishers didn’t think other people could record them successfully, so he
needed to start recording them
h. Went from being a songwriter to a “storyteller” artist, member of the country
music hall of fame
i. “Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on”
i. song about a mass murder, doesn’t pass judgement on the guy with the
gun, he lets you decide
ii. Song title referring to death by electric chair
j. Memoir “The Storyteller’s Nashville”
k. “A Week in a Country Jail”
i. Changes the story to getting a speeding ticket but really he was drinking
and driving
l. Would just go and talk to random people and write songs about them
m. Know more than you write, write less than you know
n. Wrote autobiographically true songs
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o. “Homecoming”
3. Dripping Springs, Texas concert
a. Featured Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson, some old school artists like George
Jones, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings
4. Outlaw movement in the 1970s
a. Willie and Waylon are at the forefront
b. Considered themselves to be living on the outside of the prescribed systems,
doing things in a different way. About creative vitality and creative independence
(freedom).
c. Bobby Bare, Billy Joe Shaver are other members
5. Willie Nelson
a. Got to Nashville in the early 1960s
b. Sang like a jazz singer, behind the beat
c. In the 60s, Nashville was dominated by the Nashville sound, a specific term that
applies to music from the late 50s through the 60s that leaned towards pop
music, when they took steel guitars and fiddles out, added tinkling pianos,
prominent backing vocals, maybe a string sounding, kind of uptown sounding
i. A lot of the songs sounded the same
d. When Willie Nelson recorded, it was sort of goofy-sounding
e. “Hello Walls”
i. Strong vocal backing
ii. Goofy-sounding
f. He has his own reality
g. Drank a lot and got depressed, drinking made him more depressed
h. A number of problematic marriages
i. Used to go to Tootsie’s and one night laid down in the road hoping he would get
run over but he didn’t
j. Started a pig farm without pigs up at Ridge Top, wired electrically by his wife’s
dad, who was not a really good electrician, and as a result, it caught on fire a
couple days before Christmas in 1970
i. Willie was out at a party when he got the call that his pig farm was on fire
ii. Not too long before that, their wife had dinged up their new car and it was
outside there, and he asks if the garage is on fire
k. Willie Nelson “picnics”
i. Get out of hand
ii. Texas
l. He gets a record deal with Atlantic Records, but they don’t sell well.
Phenomenon is still tied to Texas. He is doing so well as a regional artist.
m. Atlantic deal falls apart (Atlantic Nashville closes). He gets a big offer from
Columbia Records.
n. Bobby Bare, his friend
i. Made an album, passed around from producer to producer
ii. Makes an album of all Shel Silverstein songs
o. “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”
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i. Out in the 1950s, but no one remembered it
ii. No drums
iii. xSome bass, a gut-string guitar, and harmonica
p. Decide to just let Willie be Willie
6. Waylon Jennings
a. Had a different sound from Willie
b. Got creative freedom
c. Tom Paul Glaser
i. Had a studio called Hillbilly Central, musicians just hanging out there, a
lot of illegal stuff going on
ii. Tom Paul and Waylon bonded over a shared lof of Pinball (gambling
Pinball)
d. “I’m a Ramblin’ Man”
i. Bass wasn’t actually turned all the way up, it was just hitting right with the
kick drum (people tend to think it was more bass as a result)
7. Emmylou Harris
a. Not everyone was part of the outlaw movement
b. She did tour with the outlaws a lot
c. Had been mentored by Gram Parsons, who didn’t sell a lot of albums in his
lifetime but seems more important today than when he died in 1973
i. His vision of cosmic american music has morphed into what we
think of now as Americana music
ii. He kind of was an outlaw but not part of the outlaw movement
iii. He’s out in California
iv. Problematic relationship with his family
v. Phil Kaufman
1. Had been in prison with Charles Manson
2. Lived hard, called himself an executive nanny for people like the
Rolling Stones (rock and roll tour manager)
vi. Gram wants his ashes spread in the desert, tells Phil Kaufman, who
drunkenly agrees
1. Later that year, he dies from an overdose (not on the cover of
Rolling Stone or anything)
2. Kaufman realizes that the body is going to be shipped home to his
family in the South and had a friend who had a hearse. He
borrowed the hearse, took the hearse to LAX, where they load
bodies onto the planes.
3. So drunk that he hit the side of the building on the way out
4. Takes the body out to Joshua Tree, CA, covers it in gasoline, lit a
match.
5. Left as the fire watch person was chasing after them.
6. Phil Kaufman never served any jail time
7. Body ended up going back to the South
d. Phil Kaufman was Emmylou Harris’ road manager
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Kris kristofferson, refusal to assign blame, lack of judgement of other people (no finger pointing) Similar to tom t. hall: wrote sunday morning coming down by johnny cash, jesus was a capricorn , cover of rolling stone, believed that he had a creative gift and has to use it. Battle between pride and regret: glad he has the songs but it wasn"t nice to his wife and let a lot of things slide in the service of creativity: idolized johnny cash. Felt cash was killing himself with amphetamines, but also producing remarkable work. There was a notion that you need drugs and alcohol to write songs, but this probably isn"t true. About the creative struggle: devil visits a nashville bar and finds a depressed songwriter. Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on song about a mass murder, doesn"t pass judgement on the guy with the gun, he lets you decide.
