Me & Ol Waylon The phone rang, Daisy answered it, hesitated while the caller spoke and replied, Yeah, sure…just a minute. She placed the caller on hold and said to me: Your friend Ski (the late Danny Stepiewski, former professional heavyweight boxer and notorious practical joker) is on the phone. This is Gary, I answered, picking up line 1. This is Waylon Jennings, the voice said, Ive been listening to some songs that Dean Kay gave me that you wrote. I knew it wasnt Ski; Id heard Waylons speaking voice several times on TV and Ski wasnt that good of a vocal impressionist. Hey Waylon, I offered, I didnt expect to pick up the phone and hear you on the other end. I just wanted to call you and tell you I think your song, Classy Women, is one of the funniest songs Ive ever heard. I played it for Johnny Cash and we laughed our asses off. Waylon, Ive got a truckload of songs that you should be doing…it aint that easy to get your attention, though… Look, Ive got four or five of your songs and theyre the best stuff Ive received for my new album. See if you can come up with some more, have Dean forward them to me and Ill get back with you. Waylon instructed. Geez Waylon, I said, how bout I just run em up to your house? Youre in Nashville, right? Im practically next door…San Diego. Dont worry, he said laughing, I wont forget you; just whip me up a couple of more tunes and well work out all the details later. We did some small talk for a few more minutes and hung up. Id heard that Waylon had a habit of getting worked up over something (a project, or a song) and then losing interest as time passed, so it didnt really surprise me when I never heard from him again. I dont know if he ever did the album he spoke of and I dont know of any he did after we spoke. Mainstream cats do a lot of stuff that never gets released; who knows what happened? I didnt anticipate anything ever coming of it; Id been down that road too many times before. As it turned out my instincts were correct. But Ol Waylon made my day, that day and I still have the song I wrote, after that call, waiting in the wings for someone.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 21:22:39 +0000