Waylon and the Raymen

The first time I caught Waylon Jennings' music, he was playing down at J.D.'s RiverBottom, a country western night club in Tempe, AZ.

Jennings was a good-looking clean-shaven kid in a blue suit. He had a low-level energy profile, was polite to his customers, and put on a good show. That night a drunk interrupted his performance and Waylon turned on the man, really cutting him down to size.

I thought Waylon had over-reacted and wrote about it in my column for a weekly newspaper in Phoenix. Waylon read the review and it upset him. He called me, apologized and promised to improve his ways.

I was living like an outlaw in those days and visited a lot of country, blues and rock night clubs in Phoenix, Glendale, Scottsdale and Tempe.

Ray Corbin and the Raymen was a popular group that performed on Grand Avenue at McGoo's, a raucous night club in a dark section of town. Ray was like Jim Morrison, a slim, moody man with a dark side who drank between sets. He always had a bottle in his hand when I visited him backstage while he was playing.

Sometimes on his off days, Waylon would swing by McGoo's and join us backstage. The guys had an ongoing poker game since all of them were gamblers. The games would often spread from a dressing room to Talking Stick or Arizona Casino in Scottsdale.

Then Waylon met Willie Nelson and everything changed. He became an outlaw. He grew a beard, went western, and got into the drug culture. He went on the road with Willie and cultivated a renegade sound and style that still exist today.

Mr. Lucky's was for years the most popular nightclub in the Valley of the Sun. Weekly the club featured two bands -- a popular country western band that played upstairs, and a rock and roll band that played downstairs.

The atmosphere in both places was so different it was unreal. Upstairs, lightness and fun; downstairs, dark and slightly dangerous, just like the drinks.

I interviewed many country western performers who played at Mr. Lucky's. Some were legends like George Jones and Ray Price. The others included Tom T. Hall, Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash, Roy Clark, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, Charlie Pride, Tanya Tucker, Hank Williams Jr., and Willie Nelson.

Willy was fun to interview and he always had a joint that he would offer to the interviewee.

'How ya doin', hoss? Will somebody wake that SOB Jennings and tell him we got a show to perform?', Willy would say.

Roy Clark of 'Hee Haw' fame came to Phoenix and performed at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. He was driven onto the grounds taking his clothes off to Dave Rose's 'The Stripper.' He later told me he could play 17 musical instruments and had never taken a music lesson in his life.

I remember Tanya Tucker for her flirtatious ways -- she tried to seduce my photographer Paul DeGruccio. Glen Campbell for his impeccable dress and his method of playing a guitar. Ray Price laughing as he told me how he had come to write some of his song lyrics, and George Jones crying with a smile as he told me that every song he ever wrote was for Tammy Wynette.

Hank Williams Jr. was a Las Vegas gambler and fun lover. He remembered when I had taken him jackrabbit hunting in Clovis, N.M. after a concert. Neither of us was old enough to drink, but we somehow got our hands on a six-pack of beer and took a ride on a lonesome canal road where we fired shots at jackrabbits in the night's darkness.

Then there was Charlie Pride, a black former major league baseball player who had become a successful country western singer. I picked him up at the airport and drove him to his hotel. That night after an interviewed, I watched him put on a remarkable performance at Grady Gammage Auditorium in Tempe. He promised to stay on stage until the people asked him to leave and they kept him in that auditorium for a long time.

I met Glen Campbell at Mr. Lucky's. After Campbell had finished singing 'By The Time I Get to Phoenix,' I was on the phone talking to the owner of KHAT Radio Station and asking him to 'get your bones over to Mr. Lucky's and meet the country western singer of the year.' Campbell just smiled and sipped his drink.

Johnny Cash made a great interview. We spoke in his bus and he told me about the death of his older brother from a chainsaw accident. As tears streamed down his cheeks, Cash turned toward his manager and said, 'Hey, Sol, this guy knows more about me than you do.'