Outlaw country legend Waylon Jennings was not a man to be messed with. His tough-guy nature gave way to many famous anecdotes, including the time in the 2006 documentary American Revolutions: The Highway Men, that he abruptly told Highwaymen bandmate Kris Kristofferson, who was gushing about the country of France, “Piss on ‘em”. As you can imagine, Jennings was a stubborn fellow, and would make it known if he was unhappy.
In the early 1970s, after Jennings had found increased fame with 1972’s first true foray into outlaw country, Ladies Love Outlaws, he found his label, RCA Nashville, increasingly dictatorial in the studio. For its follow-up, instead of having his longtime backing band, the revered Waylors support him on the record, he was pushed in the direction of ‘The Nashville Sound’ by producers, who insisted he instead use local session musicians.
This was Waylon Jennings, and this slight upon him and his longtime band would not go unpunished. As the session musicians had a very distinct, almost clinical way of operating, honed by playing with some of country’s biggest stars, he felt they lacked passion. Therefore, he took severe measures to get what he deemed as the best out of them.
He brought in a Colt Buntline revolver in the studio, and informed them: “The first guy that I hear use a pickup note, I’m going to shoot his fingers off!” For context, a pickup note is also known as an anacrusis, which refers to a series of notes played before the first full measure of a song. He hated this country standard, and thought it was both lazy and deeply uninspiring.
While it seems like a fairly desperate attempt to bring the unwanted band of session musicians into line, years later, when speaking to the Houston Press in 1996, Jennings revealed that the revolver anecdote is true.
He explained: “Yeah, that’s a true story. I said I would shoot the fingers off of anyone that played a pickup note – and if anyone was still looking at the sheet music by the third time through, I’d kill them. That got their attention. After that, they let me use my own band.”
Due to its unbelievable proportions, quickly after Jennings brought the gun into the studio, it was printed by the press, and became the stuff of legend, particularly in the UK, as some British journalists happened to be present. That meant that only a few years later, when Jennings bumped into the former Beatles leader John Lennon at the 1975 Grammys, he mentioned it.
Jennings said: “I met John Lennon, and we were cutting up and everything at one of the Grammy things. And I said, ‘Man, you’re funny. I didn’t know you were funny.’ I said, ‘I thought you were some kind of mad guy or something like that.’”
Referring to the gun incident, Lennon replied: “Listen, people in England think you shoot folks.”
