{"id":2975,"date":"2017-07-21T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-22T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=2975"},"modified":"2025-01-09T21:42:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T02:42:45","slug":"honky-tonk-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/honky-tonk-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"Honky Tonk Heroes (Waylon Jennings)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Honky Tonk Heroes\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WFKDue5IT7w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I owe this song and my further acquaintance with Waylon&#8217;s ouevre &#8212; and much else &#8212; to Peter Guralnick. I first became tangentially aware of Peter when I got into blues as a kid and my mother mentioned that Dr. Guralnick&#8217;s<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2976 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Peter-Guralnick-Lost-Highway-193x300.jpg?resize=193%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"193\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Peter-Guralnick-Lost-Highway.jpg?resize=193%2C300&amp;ssl=1 193w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Peter-Guralnick-Lost-Highway.jpg?w=240&amp;ssl=1 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 193px) 100vw, 193px\" \/> son wrote about blues. Dr. Guralnick had removed her impacted wisdom teeth and later dealt with my impacted canines, and he recently celebrated his 102nd birthday. But being a pigheaded kid I didn&#8217;t follow up on this first clue and only discovered Peter&#8217;s work in my late teens &#8212; I don&#8217;t remember whether I read <em>Lost Highway<\/em> or <em>Feel Like Going Home<\/em> first, because I immediately read the other and in my memory they are merged into a single book.<\/p>\n<p>I learned a lot from those books, but the most important thing was that you didn&#8217;t have to sort music into categories &#8212; that you could like Waylon Jennings and Howlin&#8217; Wolf for the same reasons, and think of them as singing variations of the same kind of music, along with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/you-win-again\/\">Hank Williams<\/a>, Skip James, and Elvis Presley. I didn&#8217;t necessarily share all of Peter&#8217;s tastes &#8212; though I shared a lot of them, and\u00a0 later found we share many others that didn&#8217;t get into those books &#8212; but I hunted up every record he mentioned and many of them became central to my understanding of music and led me down the paths I&#8217;ve followed ever since.*<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-2978\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Honky-tonk-heroes.jpg?resize=276%2C276\" alt=\"\" width=\"276\" height=\"276\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Honky-tonk-heroes.jpg?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Honky-tonk-heroes.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 276px) 100vw, 276px\" \/>Peter described Waylon&#8217;s <em>Honky Tonk Heroes<\/em> as his &#8220;landmark album,&#8221; so I went right out and bought it, and it sure was a landmark for me. I had tended to dismiss contemporary country music, but that album got me on a kick that extended through another eight or ten Waylon albums, a couple of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/bloody-mary-morning\/\">Willie Nelson<\/a>&#8216;s, at least one of Tompall Glaser&#8217;s, and then I connected to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/because-of-the-wind\/\">Joe Ely<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/pride-in-what-i-am\/\">Merle Haggard<\/a> and worked my way backward to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lovesick-blues\/\">Hank Williams<\/a> and Bob Wills and forward to Lacey J. Dalton, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/goin-down-hill\/\">John Anderson<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/readin-ritin\/\">Dwight Yoakam<\/a>, and so on and on.<\/p>\n<p>I learned at least a dozen songs off Waylon&#8217;s records, but most of them didn&#8217;t really suit me &#8212; I could never sing &#8220;The only two things in life that make it worth living\/ Is guitars are tuned good and firm-feelin&#8217; women&#8221; with a straight face. This one became a regular in my repertoire, not because it suited me in an autobiographical way but because it suited my ragtime-based guitar style. I learned it one afternoon, played it at the Nameless Coffeehouse in Harvard Square that evening, and got applause for the guitar break, which had never happened before, so I kept playing it.<\/p>\n<p>I only saw Waylon live once, and he was as good as I&#8217;d hoped &#8212; he still had Ralph Mooney on steel, and the rest of the band was loose and powerful, and he seemed natural, charming, and wild, just like in Guralnick&#8217;s piece. His records were mostly spotty, and when I listen back these days I tend to put together my own mixes, but there&#8217;s still something in his voice that I can&#8217;t get anywhere else, and I still enjoy fooling around with a lot of those songs:<\/p>\n<p><em>The highway is hotter than nine kinds of hell<br \/>\nThe rides are scarce as the rain<br \/>\nWhen you&#8217;re down to your last shuck, with nothing to sell<br \/>\nAnd too far away for the trains<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-2980\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/billy-joe-shaver.jpg?resize=141%2C166\" alt=\"\" width=\"141\" height=\"166\" \/>Like &#8220;Honky Tonk Heroes,&#8221; that one was penned by Billy Joe Shaver, who wrote most of that landmark Waylon album and deserves his own entry. I saw him a bunch of times over the years, interviewed him a couple of times, love his writing, and he&#8217;s a whole other story.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>*In an earlier post I credited <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/anybody-going-san-antone\/\"><em>Doug Sahm and Band<\/em><\/a> with setting me on that path, and that record probably hit me at about the same time as Guralnick, though I don&#8217;t think I made the connection at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I owe this song and my further acquaintance with Waylon&#8217;s ouevre &#8212; and much else &#8212; to Peter Guralnick. I first became tangentially aware of Peter when I got into blues as a kid and my mother mentioned that Dr. Guralnick&#8217;s son wrote about blues. Dr. Guralnick had removed her impacted wisdom teeth and later &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/honky-tonk-heroes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Honky Tonk Heroes (Waylon Jennings)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Honky Tonk Heroes (Waylon Jennings) - 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I've paid tribute to that pairing a few times already, in my posts for \"West Texas Waltz,\" \"Row of Dominoes,\" and \"Wishing for You,\" and don't have more to say about them... Joe reshaped my ideas about what I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Joe-Ely-LP-e1660418076967.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3159,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/im-moving-on\/","url_meta":{"origin":2975,"position":1},"title":"I&#8217;m Moving On (Hank Snow\/Ray Charles)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In the mid-1980s I was looking for songs in the wide area of overlap between blues and country, and Ray Charles' terrific version of this Hank Snow hit made it an obvious choice. In that period I was touring across country twice a year, with most of the gigs in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Ray-Charles-Movin-On-300x296.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3801,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/me-and-billy\/","url_meta":{"origin":2975,"position":2},"title":"Me and Billy the Kid (Joe Ely)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I've already written about my introduction to Joe Ely and my affection for his work, and I'm happy to revisit the subject, because I owe him a lot. Beyond the great songs I learned off his records, and the records themselves, it was a whole attitude toward music. Along with\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Ely-Liberty-Lunch-297x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":820,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/euphoria\/","url_meta":{"origin":2975,"position":3},"title":"Euphoria (The Holy Modal Rounders)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"My take on an early psychedelic hillbilly favorite from the Holy Modal Rounders, with thanks to my uncle Sascha, and love to Peter Stampfel.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Fantasy blues sampler","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Fantasy-blues-sampler-e1459388602923.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/cannonball-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":2975,"position":4},"title":"Cannonball Blues (Woody, Carters, Leslie Riddle)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"December 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"As I explain in the clip, I've known this since I was a kid, though back then I would have played it with a flatpick. My first musical heroes were Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston, with Pete Seeger running a close third. In my twenties it occurred to me that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/FW31010.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1031,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/black-mountain-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":2975,"position":5},"title":"Black Mountain Blues (Dave Van Ronk)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I got this from Dave Van Ronk's first album -- once again, it was the kind of violent, bragging song that perfectly suited the tastes of a teenage boy who was getting into blues. Dave had learned it from Bessie Smith's recording, and had the bright idea of combining her\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Scrapper_Blackwell and Bessie Smith","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Scrapper_Blackwell-and-Bessie-Smith-197x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2975"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5384,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions\/5384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}