Another classic Waylon Jennings story.
Of course, he was kind of known for walking out when something didn’t sit right with him, from late night shows to major country music awards shows, it didn’t make a difference to him… if Waylon didn’t like it for whatever reason, he was out.
And honestly, I have to respect that, because especially in the music business, it’s so easy for artists to get taken advantage of, both monetarily and otherwise, and there’s probably times even today when artists should follow his lead, but I digress…
Until today, I thought I’d heard all the Waylon “walk out” stories that were out there in the public realm, but I stumbled on a great one in an interview Youtube creator Otis Gibbs did with Barry Walsh, a keyboard player who toured with Waylon and played on his records throughout the 1980’s.
He recalled a show where Waylon was opening for Hank Williams Jr. (they opened for each other many times throughout their careers), and how it was being recorded for a pay-per-view event on cable. It’s unclear on the year, but since Walsh toured with Waylon mostly in the 80’s, I’d guess it was sometime in the mid-to-late 80’s considering Waylon was opening for Hank Jr. and not the other way around.
Anywho, Waylon’s set was apparently not being broadcast as part of the pay-per-view package, though the production decided to use his playing time as a rehearsal of sorts, to ensure they had the right blocking and camera settings for Hank Jr.
Well, you can probably imagine how Waylon felt about that… Barry says it was the “one time when I saw him go off on somebody”:
“It was on a package show, on a show where we were opening for Hank Jr. in Cincinnati at an arena, and it was being filmed for pay-per-view live. But only Hank’s part was on the live feed, and Waylon was the opening act…
So Waylon, he did like four songs, and during those four songs the camera operators were getting their settings to do the Hank part where they were actually gonna film. But they were using us as kind of the set up, the rehearsal for the cameras and the blocking.
And after about four songs, Waylon was like, ‘This is bullsh*t. I’m not doing this anymore.’ ‘Cuz they were getting up in his face and I don’t blame him, they were really getting pretty obnoxious and aggressive.”
Honestly, it’s not hard to see why Waylon felt like he was being taken advantage of, and while most people would probably grin and bear it and just try to finish the set, we all know that Waylon was not most people.
Of course, after he set his guitar down and walked off in the middle of the set, his band members followed suit. But what happened while his tour manager was trying to get paid by the promoter in the midst of all of that might just be the best part of the story:
“He just kind of turned around, put his guitar down and walked off the stage after like the fourth or fifth song… and then he disappears, so we left. And then I heard later that the road manager… was getting the money from the promoter right at that point, and he had his radio on.
And so the stage manager was on the radio telling the road manager that Waylon had just left, he put his guitar down after four songs and he walked off the stage, he got pissed off.
So the road manager, this is coming on his radio as he’s talking to the promoter and getting the money for the gig, and he goes, he hits his radio and he’s going, ‘There’s something wrong with this thing.’ And he quickly turns it off just to stop this conversation. And then got the money.”
A close call, indeed, but it sounded like he muted it just quickly enough so that everyone still got paid, which is usually what most of the band and crew is worried about before they depart town anyways.
Barry said that Waylon was “in a rage” after that, and he wanted to make sure his friend Hank Jr. knew he wasn’t happy about the situation:
“Waylon was in a rage after that, you know, ‘Sons of b*tches,’ and then we all just got on the bus and split.
I think he made his intentions known to Hank Jr. that he was not happy about the situation. It wasn’t Hank’s fault, it was the production.”
It’s true, though I don’t really understand why they wouldn’t have just broadcast both performances since Waylon is an icon and I’m sure the fans would’ve wanted to see him, too… I know it would’ve cost more money, but at least all of this could’ve probably been avoided.
Hindsight is 20/20, though, as they say, and if who knows if we would get to hear this legendary story today had things gone any differently…
God bless Waylon Jennings.