Waylon (14 page)

Lynne did not trust men. She was married twice before, and I think she had a complex about not being educated. She liked to
be in control, and that was always a hard call with me. At the beginning, the age difference was in her favor. It gave her
an edge; she was more streetwise, tougher than I was, though I later realized a lot of it was based on sheer bravado. Then
it turned around the other way, where she worried that I was going to run off with a younger woman.

More problems in marriage are brought about by insecurity than anything else. If I said something about loving my mother in
front of Maxine, she thought it took away from my love for her. For Lynne, the more popular I got, the more she suspicioned
it was turning my head around. I’m sure there were moments she could feel me slipping away.

We had some good times. Every Monday night we’d visit a restaurant in Scottsdale named Monte’s, where they had a great steak
and salad with Roquefort dressing. We’d cook out in the backyard. We’d play cards. Working in bars, we didn’t go out much.

Whenever we had too much time out of bed, we’d get in a fight. It must be a law of nature that the very things that turn you
on about each other make you insecure later. We quarreled as many minutes as we were cuddling up, and the fighting may have
been part of the lovemaking. One usually seemed to follow the other.

I think you feel guilty when you’re married and start seeing somebody else. It was wrong, we both knew that. After my divorce
came through from Maxine, we needed to justify our behavior, because it was all too easy to throw it up in each other’s faces
when we got mad. “Oh, you were easy to get,” I’d tell Lynne, and she’d answer, “I didn’t have to do anything to get you in
bed.” Neither of us could cast the first stone. In an odd way, I think we got married to see if we could get along better.
After all we’d been through, went the reasoning, at least we ought to give it a try.

I brought out what I called the marine sergeant in her. She was one of those people who could get mad and stay angry for two
weeks, never speaking to you, even though you were in the same house. She had strength and weakness mixed up, always unsure
of herself and her grip on me. Things were starting to roll my way, and there were more demands on my time. It couldn’t have
been easy, but her way of holding on was to dig in and ridicule me. She was afraid of seeming vulnerable. It got worse when
Maxine sent my kids to live with us. I was trying to do the best I could; still, I couldn’t get any cooperation from Lynne.
She would not accept children by another wife in the house.

Lynne had a miscarriage before we were married. She had nephritis, which is a kidney disease, and when she got pregnant we
had to have an abortion to save her life. It was our most tender moment together; I felt so bad for her. She wanted a baby
more than anything, and the loss really affected her. I don’t think she felt she was a full woman, and maybe she hoped that
it would cement our relationship, to have a child that was truly ours.

We brought Tomi Lynne home to our apartment when she was three days old. Through friends, Jo and Jan, we found a young girl
who was going to have a baby; Lynne and I both knew the mother. She had become pregnant by a married man, and financially
or circumstantially she could get no support from the father. We arranged the adoption through a lawyer, and we chose Jo as
her godmother. A couple of years later, I would return the favor by introducing Jo as my sister to “Ballad of Paladin” singer
Johnny Western when he came to spell me at J.D.’s. When he left Phoenix, he took her with him, and they’ve spent the rest
of the years since happily married.

Our new daughter arrived on our doorstep in a bassinet that had “no information” written on it. Her underarms and her little
feet were cracked and bleeding. No one had thought to put oil on her or anything. Tomi Lynne lay there in my lap that night;
she was so tender and beautiful. People say babies can’t see, but she looked at me and she’d go to sleep, and then she’d wake
up and look at me. I guess she felt secure.

We were doing quite well. At J.D.’s I was taking home over a thousand dollars a week, and I was able to buy the first brand-new
car I had ever owned, a ’64 Chevrolet. As a family, we moved over to Pierce Street, and then got a house in Scottsdale, on
East Amelia right off Indian School Road. We needed the room because my kids from Maxine had arrived. They were a little confused
by the new situation, though they tried not to show it. I’m sure my separation from their birth mother hurt them, dividing
their tiny loyalties, but they seemed resilient enough. Like most kids from broken homes, I think they always hoped that it
might miraculously change back. There wasn’t much chance of that, but they were happy to see me, running up the walk and throwing
their arms around me, while Lynne watched from the side, giving me the cold shoulder, inwardly fuming.

Lynne would show all the love in the world to Tomi Lynne, and none to my other children. She’d make them stay outside all
day, and only let them come in to play in the family room and their bedroom, and eat in the kitchen.

She hated that they were there. All of her attention went to her little girl. Lynne would cuddle with her and kiss on her
and never pay any attention to the others except to correct them, holler at them, or tell them to go to bed. She could never
speak kind to them.

This went on for a year and a half, two years. One night they were all there, and she was playing with the baby, and the baby
was squealing, and Lynne was laughing and tickling her. The other kids were in the room. Buddy was about four years old, and
he walked up to her and put his hand on her arm. “Wynne,” he said in his little voice, “do you wike me?”

That broke my heart. “Sure,” she said. “I like you. Go set down,” and she went back to playing with the little girl, hugging
her. She never kissed one of the other kids in her life. There was no affection there.

I kept thinking things would change, but it was never for the better. We could go for a week and not say a word to each other.
One time she made me so mad I grabbed the metal closet doors and pulled them off, and cut my hands to keep from hitting her.
She hated that my kids were around. They wanted Lynne to love them, and I saw them trying to win her approval. But she was
cold to them, and consequently me. All she did was scold.

I thought, This can’t go on. So I called Maxine and told her I was going to send the kids back. I bought her a brick house,
filled it with furniture, and packed up the kids’ clothes and toys in a trailer. I kissed Terry, Julie, and Buddy, and the
baby Deana goodbye, for how long I couldn’t know. My brother took them back to Texas, and the night they left I sat up crying.
I didn’t go to bed at all.

The next morning Lynne came over to me. I was still sitting in the chair, red-eyed. We hadn’t even spoken for two weeks. “Hon’,
don’t be sad,” she said. “Everything is going to be all right. Don’t you worry, we’ll make it fine.”

I looked at her. “If you’d called me a rotten sonofabitch, or told me to fuck off or something like that, you might’ve been
able to hold on to me. But you ain’t got a chance. I’ll never live with you.” And I got up and left. She tried everything
she could to get me to come back. I couldn’t forgive her for making me send my kids away, though she was the first woman I
ever thought I loved.

I had met Barbara at the Cross Keys: long blond hair, pretty blue eyes, built like you wouldn’t believe. Richie was the only
unmarried man in the group and she became friendly with him so she could always be around. But he was just the excuse. Barbara
Rood had her eye on me, even though I was still with Lynne, and I wasn’t exactly blind either.

I remember the night she showed up at the Cross Keys. Everybody did. It was like something out of a movie; she was the star.
It was summertime and she was wearing a sundress. She pulled up in a red convertible outside the club with her girlfriend
and walked in, the center of attention, tall and tan. Statuesque. Even in the glamor town of Phoenix, she stood out like a
lighthouse in the fog.

We stayed away from each other as long as we could. We’d talk some, but we never did anything. Finally I went to Houston to
have some talks with a record label there, and she came down. It was the first time we were together. She was never comfortable
with what we were doing, and I wasn’t either. Still, it was hard to keep away, and we started seeing each other on the sly.
I’d have to go over to her house in the daytime.

Barbara was a golden girl and a dear heart. Her dad had invented a cotton machine that picked up cotton between the rows that
the boll puller would miss. He was worth about thirty million dollars, and she had a lot of money. She even bought a car the
same color as mine. She was definitely more of a party girl than Lynne.

I wrote “Anita, You’re Dreaming” about her when we first got together. I had most of it done and Don Bowman helped me finish
it. She was “Anita … dreaming of a world that just don’t exist.” I was telling her that it didn’t look like I was ever going
to get loose from Lynne, and she was young and deserved a better deal than I could offer. She was dreaming if she thought
it could happen.

But dreams have a way of revealing truths, and when I left Lynne, I went right to Barbara.

That wasn’t the only fantasy crossing the line into reality. Don had become friends with Bobby Bare, who had gotten out of
the army and, rather than coasting on his Bill Parsons persona, had scored hits with “500 Miles Away from Home” and “Detroit
City” under his own name. Bowman was always telling him about me, and he got to find out for himself when he was driving through
Phoenix one time and heard “Just to Satisfy You” on the radio.

He brought the record to his producer in Nashville, Chet Atkins, and said he wanted to record it. Chet was familiar with “Just
to Satisfy You” because Bowman had brought him a copy of the record, but he turned it over and said “Hell, this is the one
I want to do.” So they wound up doing them both. “Four Strong Winds” turned out to be a big hit for Bobby.

Chet had also heard of me because he’d done one of my songs with Don, “Help Keep Ol’ John Out of Town.” It was a novelty song
about this guy who’s fooling around with the wife of a country star who’s on the road, wearing his clothes and smoking his
cigars. The punch line was “So buy all his records / And go see his shows / And help keep of John out of town.” Chet thought
it was clever.

The next time Bobby came through Phoenix, in November of 1964, he headed over after his gig to J.D.’s and we did a duet on
“Just to Satisfy You.” He had the next day off so he came to see me and the band play. Somewhere between Phoenix and Las Vegas,
he got to thinking about it, and stopped at a pay phone.

“Chet,” he said. “I’ve just seen Waylon. He’s the best thing since Elvis. I know he and I are doing the same kind of songs,
the same kind of material for the same kind of audience. But I dug everything about him: his voice, the way the band stays
out of his way so you can hear him sing, his hold on the audience. He is so good, he deserves to be on a major label.”

Chet had heard similar praise from Skeeter Davis, who called him at home to tell him he should sign me, and Duane Eddy. It
wasn’t like an agent or a manager coming in and hyping someone; that doesn’t mean anything. But coming from Bobby, who liked
country and folk and had been a part of rock ’n’ roll, the recommendation meant something. We loved the same songs.

Bobby gave Chet my phone number.

To be on RCA and have Chet Atkins produce me. To have him call me and tell me he would like to sign me, having never even
seen me. I’ll never forget that day. I was sitting at home, and I could hear this real gentle, kind voice on the other end
of the phone, saying “We’d sure like for you to record for RCA. Would you be interested?”

Would I be interested?

It was impossible to say no. That was the ultimate. RCA—or Victor, as I’d seen on so many Jimmie Rodgers and Carter Family
78s—was recorded country music from almost the very beginning, dating back to the Bristol, Tennessee, sessions organized by
Ralph Peer in 1928; and Chet was a legend. Not only was he a well-regarded artist and repertoire executive who could put a
gold seal on your career, but he was a musician’s musician, an originator who had his own Gretsch guitar named after him:
the Country Gentleman. He was Sonny Curtis’s idol!

You could book on the road without hit records, because you were on RCA and Chet Atkins produced you. God’s right hand, they
called him. “Are you signed to a label?” Chet asked me.

A&M was just a little independent then, built around the Tijuana Brass. They hadn’t yet signed Captain Beefheart or Procol
Harum or Cat Stevens or the Carpenters. From such acorns oak trees might grow, but at that time there wasn’t much more than
a seedling sprouting. I had gotten the call that every country boy dreams of. I asked Herb and Jerry if I could get loose
to go with RCA, though if they wanted me to stay, I said I would. “Sure, Waylon,” Jerry agreed. He knew they’d be unduly pressured
to have a big hit with me if I turned down Chet’s offer. “We don’t want to stand in your way. We understand what Chet would
mean to you.”

Herb understood as well, but he countered RCA’s bid with something more personal. “I hate to give up,” he said. “I really
think I could do it with you. I believe I can.” He offered me a percentage of the company, eight or ten percent, if I would
stay. It was the hardest thing in the world to say “No, I really want to try this.” They were the best people for giving me
my release, and still are. They taught me how to truly sing “Unchained Melody.”

When I look down today at my guitar, caught in the spotlights of whatever town is giving me a place on their stage, it’s essentially
similar to the instrument I played at J.D.’s. It’s a Fender Telecaster; solid body, maple neck. It ain’t got but two knobs
on it. You turn it on and you have the same sound all the way through.