Waylon Jennings
American country musician (1937–2002)
Waylon Arnold Jennings (born Wayland Arnold Jennings, June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American country music singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He is considered one of the pioneers of the outlaw movement in country music.
Jennings started playing guitar at age eight and performed at 14 on KVOW radio, after which he formed his first band, the Texas Longhorns. Jennings left high school at age 16, determined to become a musician, and worked as a performer and DJ on KVOW, KDAV, KYTI, KLLL, in Coolidge, Arizona, and Phoenix. In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings's first recording session, a cover of "Jole Blon", and hired him to play bass. Jennings gave up his seat on the ill-fated airplane flight in 1959 that crashed and killed Holly, J. P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson and Ritchie Valens.
Jennings then returned to Texas, taking several years off from music before eventually moving to Arizona and forming a rockabilly club band, the Waylors, which became the house band at JD's, a club in Tempe, Arizona. He recorded for independent label Trend Records and A&M Records, but did not achieve success until moving to RCA Victor in 1965. In 1972 he hired Neil Reshen as his manager, who negotiated significantly better touring and recording contracts. After Jennings gained creative control from RCA Records, he released the critically acclaimed albums Lonesome, On'ry and Mean and Honky Tonk Heroes, followed by the hit albums Dreaming My Dreams featuring number-one hit "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" and Are You Ready for the Country.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Waylon Jennings” is american country musician (1937–2002). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Waylon, Jennings and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “american country musician (1937–2002)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q251287. VIAF identifies the subject as 59269859. The Library of Congress control number is n83065770. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 2002, 1958 and 1959.
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This entry incorporates text from “Waylon Jennings” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.