Waylon Jennings
Photo: Hot Schatz Productions

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — In a memorial service that was by turns raucous, rocking and reverent, Waylon Jennings was warmly remembered by friends, fans and family at the Ryman Auditorium on Saturday.

Artists ranging from Charley Pride to Kris Kristofferson to Jennings' son Shooter paid tribute to the late Country Music Hall of Fame member in song and story. The 64-year-old country star died on February 13 in his sleep at his home in Phoenix, Arizona (see "Country Music Outlaw Waylon Jennings Dies At 64").

The service was open to the public, and fans started arriving long before the 7:30 p.m. start time. Many spent the time waiting outside the venue swapping stories about Jennings and waving to the celebrities arriving in tour buses and limousines: "There's Emmylou!" "I said 'hi' to Hank Jr. in the alley!"

Nashville disc jockey Carl P. Mayfield, who in recent years gave Jennings a public forum with the call-in show "Waylon Wednesdays" on WKDF-FM, served as master of ceremonies. The service — dubbed "I've Always Been Crazy: A Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Waylon Jennings" — began with Shooter Jennings taking the stage — which was adorned with a large backdrop of Jennings' signature flying "W" logo, a large picture of him, and two tall vases of red roses flanking his familiar Telecaster guitar with the hand-tooled leather cover, a black cowboy hat perched atop its neck.

Shooter welcomed the crowd and explained that although Johnny Cash had been scheduled for the service (and was listed in the program as the first musical performer), his doctors had advised against him traveling from his winter home in Jamaica. "I talked to him and Johnny said to 'Enjoy yourselves and honor Waylon,' " Shooter said.

With that, Travis Tritt took the stage. Remarking that "Waylon had one foot firmly in country and one in rock and roll, and I've tried to pattern myself after him," Tritt launched into a rocking version of Jennings' 1973 song "Lonesome, On'ry and Mean." Backed by the 10-piece Waymore's Blues Band — Jennings' last musical ensemble — Tritt at times sounded eerily like Jennings.

He was followed by the young group Cross Canadian Ragweed, which performed an energetic version of "Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line." That was followed by lengthy video clips of different periods in Jennings' life and career, anchored by a recurring scenario of actor Robert Duvall portraying a shrink, interviewing Jennings as his patient. The biggest laugh of the night came during the airing of a clip of Jennings on the TV show "Politically Incorrect," in which he said, "We don't want to impeach Clinton. We just want somebody to kick his ass."

Charley Pride came onstage to sing "Good Hearted Woman" and to recall that Jennings had offered him that song before he himself recorded it. He also flashed a ring that Jennings gave him years ago, which he still wears.

Pride was followed by Hank Williams Jr., who said that Jennings had been a father figure to him and took him on the road as his opening act when Hank Jr. was still a teenager. "When I was 16," he said, "Waylon let ol' Bocephus go out there. He could have had the pick of anybody he wanted." Williams sang his emotional composition "Eyes of Waylon" and was interrupted by an audience ovation for the line, "The first triple platinum in this town is hanging on his wall" — a reference to Jennings' 1979 Greatest Hits album, which became Nashville's first 3 million-selling album and has since been certified quadruple platinum.

Kris Kristofferson prefaced his version of Jennings' composition "I Do Believe" by saying, "If I ever thought I would be singing to honor Waylon in the Ryman Auditorium, it might have helped me through some hard spots." After Nashville songwriter Tom Douglas sang "Nothing Catches Jesus by Surprise," another series of videos was shown, featuring the video of Jennings' "Wild Ones" and a Kid Rock video in which he sang Jennings' theme song from the TV show "Dukes of Hazzard" and paid homage to Jennings.

Among those sending letters and e-mails of condolence that were read to the crowd were Graham Nash, Kenny Rogers, Paul Simon, Billy Bob Thornton, Neil Diamond, James Garner and Metallica lead singer James Hetfield, whose lengthy message was very heartfelt.

The latter got a great cheer from the balcony crowd, which was made up of staunch and very vocal Jennings fans. There was more black leather showing in the balcony than on the stage and the ground floor combined, and there were black cowboy hats up there galore. One fan T-shirt read "Waylon F---ing Jennings," as he used to introduce himself in shows long ago.

Mayfield prefaced Shooter Jennings' performance with his L.A. band Stargunn by saying, "Jessi said that Waylon wanted Shooter to sing 'I've Always Been Crazy' at his funeral." And Shooter and his metal band fused very well with his father's Waymore's Blues Band on the song, with Shooter's fiery vocals and his band's churning metal guitars alternating with lively fiddle and piano and trumpet solos from the Waymore band. "This may be the changing of the guard," Mayfield said after the song.

Billy Ray Cyrus walked onstage with an acoustic guitar to begin "Amazing Grace," on which he was joined first by Tritt and then by Kristofferson.

The service ended with the first public hearing of the last song Jennings recorded, which was played over a darkened stage. "The Dream" is a lovely piano-based ballad comparing life with a dream, which Jennings concludes by singing, "I've had it both ways and the dream could never compare."

Shooter returned to bid all a goodnight and to say, "Thank you for coming. We hope you enjoyed yourselves. We sure as hell did."

• Waylon Jennings
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Waylon Jennings
Photo: Frank Okenfels

Country music legend Waylon Jennings died Wednesday (February 13) in his Arizona home after a long battle with diabetes. He was 64.

Jennings' spokesperson told the Associated Press that the singer/guitarist with more than 60 albums to his credit passed away peacefully.

In December, the diabetes forced Jennings to have his left foot amputated. Even after the surgery, he reportedly vowed to persevere with a new album he hoped to have out this spring. His last offering was the live album Never Say Die: Live (2000), which Jennings recorded at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium with the Waymore Blues Band in January 2000.

He was best known for pioneering the outlaw country movement of the 1970s along with fellow banditos Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. These artists rebelled against the pop-influenced and orchestrated country music coming out of Nashville at the time, favoring instead a stripped-down, back-to-basics approach while keeping in stride with country's ethos of love and loneliness.

Jennings began his career in the late 1950s as a temporary bassist for the Crickets, Buddy Holly's backing band. Following Holly's death in a plane crash in 1959 — a flight Jennings was scheduled to be aboard — Jennings hit the country trail in 1960 with a band called the Waylors. After a few failed singles, he moved to Nashville in 1965 and fared better, scoring his first top 40 country hit with "Stop the World (And Let Me Off)." In 1978, he recorded the hit "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys," a duet with Nelson.

Jennings was also responsible for narrating and singing the theme song for the '80s television show "The Dukes of Hazzard."

He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October.

• Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings
Photo: BMG

NASHVILLE — Waylon Jennings said Wednesday that joining the Country Music Hall of Fame last week means "absolutely nothing, if you want to know the truth about it."

Jennings addressed the issue in an interview with CMT News Wednesday morning (October 10) following the unveiling of his caricature at the Palm Restaurant in Nashville.

When 12 new members were inducted into the hall at a special dinner on Thursday, Jennings chose to sit out the event, sending his son Buddy Jennings to accept the honor on his behalf.

Fellow inductee Sam Phillips, speaking at the banquet, expressed regret at Jennings' absence. "Waylon is like me, in many ways," he said. "He is, in his own mind, ... a rebel with a cause. ... It don't mean you're mad at a damn soul, but now Waylon can get mad, you know?"

Jennings and the Country Music Association — the body that oversees election to the hall — have had a prickly relationship through the years, and Jennings long has maintained that he'd rather play his music than accept awards for it.

"They told me years ago I'd never be in [the hall], which was all right with me," Jennings said. "I think you need to play your music and do the best you can with that, and that's what you'll be remembered for."

In his book, "Waylon: An Autobiography," Jennings recalls being asked to perform an abbreviated version of his hit "Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line" at a CMA awards show.

"I said, 'Why don't I just dance across the stage and grin? Maybe do one line. That'll give you a lot of time.' "

Show producers gave him an ultimatum — do the song their way or leave. "They said, 'We don't need you,' " Jennings wrote. "I decided that was true, and I left."

Though he's not itching for a fight now, Jennings won't back down, either. "I don't want any more trouble. I've had trouble with them all through these years," he said. "I'm not a member of the CMA."

He's not mad or bitter, Jennings added, and he could have lived without the honor had it not come his way.

"I let one of my sons go there and accept it," he said. "I think it meant something to my kids, and that's enough."

• Waylon Jennings