John Lennon’s Letter to Waylon Jennings
On October 5th, Guernsey’s Auctions will be liquidating a massive 2,000-piece collection of items owned by Waylon Jennings from his Arizona estate. Though there are many items of intrigue to be sold off, one of the most curious might be the letter John Lennon once wrote to Waylon Jennings. Representing such a clashing of music worlds, this artifact of popular music is one of the few insights we have into men that spent most of their lives trying to protect their privacy and wearing their personas like armor.
The letter first surfaced in the public eye in the glossy photo section of Waylon’s 1996 autobiography with Lenny Kaye. No explanation, and no context for the letter was given, simply the caption of, “A Beatle writes…” Beyond the natural curiosity the letter creates from being between two megastars who on the surface would seem to be polar opposite personalities, the hilarity Lennon embedded throughout the letter makes it especially enriching. Waylon Jennings and John Lennon were not as far apart as one would think, or as even the two stars thought themselves when they first met at the Grammy Awards in New York.
For starters, Waylon and John had a “Buddy” between them. Buddy Holly was a big influence on The Beatles during the British band’s early stages, and Waylon did time as the bass player in Buddy Holly’s backing band “The Crickets” when the two original members took a break. The name “The Crickets” by many accounts is what directly inspired Lennon to call his band with Paul McCartney “The Beatles,” (McCartney was responsible for changing the ‘e’ to an ‘a’). The first song John Lennon ever recorded with Paul McCartney and George Harrison was a cover of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be The Day.” It was also Waylon who gave up his seat to The Big Bopper on that fateful plane that crashed in 1959 in an event that later became known as “The Day The Music Died,” taking the lives of the Bopper, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.
But when John Lennon met Waylon, Buddy Holly was not what was on his mind, and it wasn’t on Waylon’s either. As revealed in a 1996 interview with Waylon by Terry Gross, both stars had the other pegged incorrectly before they met. “I met John Lennon, and I – you know, we were cutting up and everything at one of the Grammy things,” Waylon recalls. “And I said, ‘Man, you’re a lot of – you’re funny. I didn’t know you were funny,’ I said. ‘I thought you were some kind of mad guy or something like that.'”
This explains in part the humorous tone Lennon took with the letter.
When it came to how Lennon perceived Waylon, it was even more off the mark.
As much as Waylon’s reputation in the United States was one of a rough and tumble country music Outlaw, in the U.K. it was even more so. During an early studio session in Waylon’s career, he was recording at RCA in Nashville when he brought a gun into the studio to make a point about RCA’s session players playing “pickup notes.” Waylon didn’t feel like session players played with any feeling to their music. They were great players, but after playing on so many different recordings each day, they lacked the type of imagination and creativity Waylon wanted on his records. This perception of session players was later one of the foundations for the Outlaw movement, but while Waylon was still under the thumb of RCA, he had to do whatever he could to get the session players to play with feeling.
So during one studio session, Jennings brought a long-barreled Colt Buntline revolver with him and proclaimed, “The first guy that I hear use a pickup note, I’m going to shoot his fingers off!” Though the session players themselves probably took it mostly as sarcasm, some British journalists who were in the studio observing the session at the time didn’t have the same handle on American custom or Waylon’s personality. After their reports of Waylon carrying a revolver into the studio were published, Waylon’s Outlaw reputation in Britain only grew more menacing.
So when Waylon said to John Lennon at The Grammy Awards, “I thought you were some kind of mad guy or something like that,” Lennon’s response was, “Listen, people in England think you shoot folks.“
All indications are Waylon Jennings and John Lennon hit it off like peanut butter and jelly. Though the letter itself does not shed much light on when they met (the date Lennon gives is “MARCH SOMETHING (year of our ford),” though it does say “75 etc.” below), they likely met on March 1st, 1975 at the Uris Theater in New York City during the year’s Grammy Awards. Waylon was up for Best Country & Western Vocal Performance for his song “I’m A Ramblin’ Man,” and Lennon was a resident of New York at the time.
The letter seems to be prefacing Lennon sending Waylon a song or songs he wrote but never released. From misspelling Waylon’s first name (and correcting it with pen), to Lennon’s Liverpool accent coming out in his typing (“TWAS GOOD TA MEETYA”), to the self-portrait squiggle of his own visage, the John (Lennon) letter to Waylon may offer as much insight into the true personality of the legendary Beatle than any other artifact he left behind on this mortal coil. And it’s one that is given special meaning because of who it was sent to.
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UPDATE: The letter sold at auction for $7,500.
September 2, 2014 @ 6:10 pm
I enjoyed reading this, as a fan of both artists, I never knew they were acquainted.
September 2, 2014 @ 8:47 pm
That is so sweet! 😀 Love the bespectacled smiley under the sig (I do pretty much the same thing when I sign greeting cards and letters to family and friends).
“Year of our ford” — sounds like a ‘Brave New World’ reference…
September 2, 2014 @ 11:41 pm
I just happened upon a BBC documentary of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, on youtube. She apparently cleared plenty of trails and sowed lots of seeds, including influences on Brits, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry. She even did some songs with Red Foley. I can’t find the whole song but Amazon has a sample. So anyway…Waylon(d) and Lennon had more in common than even they knew. http://www.amazon.com/Have-Little-Talk-With-Jesus/dp/B00617B09G#
September 3, 2014 @ 3:05 am
“The letter seems to be prefacing Lennon sending Waylon a song or songs he wrote but never released.”
Looks like he’s suggesting “Tight A$” (an album cut from 1973’s “Mind Games”) as the potential hit. Pretty awesome to imagine Waylon covering that!
September 3, 2014 @ 5:36 am
trigger, i really didn’t know where to say it…
i created a colaborative playlist on spotify called Underrated Country Music. would you take a look and support it? thank you!
September 3, 2014 @ 11:42 am
I couldn’t find your playlist on spotify, maybe try changing the name?
September 3, 2014 @ 7:31 am
The rock and roll greats have always had mad respect for the kings of country.
February 16, 2022 @ 10:41 am
Except for the ones that sound like they sing with close pins on their noses.
September 3, 2014 @ 7:52 am
You know, when Buddy Holly first formed his band, they considered calling themselves “The Beetles”. Kinda makes you wonder what the Beatles would have been known as.
September 3, 2014 @ 9:04 am
Somehow, he must have found time between administering beatings to his wife to scratch out some chicken shit. What a prick and what an embarrassing jumble of junkie nonsense. A decent person would take the time to correctly spell a man’s name and possibly make an attempt to convey a cogent thought. John Lennon was a real piece of shit, and an overrated one, at that. You were bigger than Jesus and now you’re deader than a doornail. Rot in Hell. As I once heard someone say, Lenin was the Premier of the Soviet Union, but Lennon was the more committed communist…
September 3, 2014 @ 12:02 pm
Gerry and the Pacemakers fans are so cute when angry…
September 3, 2014 @ 12:25 pm
Waylon had his own real failings which we don’t need to address here because it wouldn’t be in the spirit of the article. A significant difference between Waylon and Lennon dealing with their own demons is that Waylon was afforded the opportunity to live long enough to confront and correct his whereas Lennon was not.
And I pray you RD do not count yourself a fan of Waylon Jennings, he deserves better.
September 3, 2014 @ 1:41 pm
I could never be half the fan you are.
I think John Lennon lived about 40 years longer than he really needed to….
November 17, 2016 @ 3:46 pm
Get over it already…
March 29, 2022 @ 7:26 pm
bwaa haa haa panties still bunched?
June 23, 2023 @ 11:35 am
Takes one to know one and fortunately you don’t know shit from shinola! Just putting my 2 cents on to your 2cents!
September 3, 2014 @ 1:46 pm
@RD – You obviously know nothing about Lennon’s sense of humour….
September 3, 2014 @ 4:22 pm
I’ve heard/read what a miserable prick JL was to everyone except himself…. Really, double fantasy was trash! Cine in people!
September 3, 2014 @ 4:52 pm
I”™ve heard/read what a miserable prick JL was to everyone except himself
Waylon Jennings to John Lennon
”˜Man, you”™re a lot of ”“ you”™re funny. I didn”™t know you were funny,”™
Hence, this article.
September 8, 2014 @ 10:52 am
To Sun Never Shines…
Didn’t your daddy ever teach you? , “Don’t believe everything you read, Half of what you see…and NOTHING of what you hear..”
Ya dig…? Great..I knew that ya could..
JA
September 3, 2014 @ 4:39 pm
I am not a fan of the Beatles or their individual members at all, but this was still pretty neat. Thanks for sharing, Trigger. 😀 I have heard they were also big fans of Buck Owens.
September 4, 2014 @ 6:17 am
That they were. Thus, the cover of “Act Naturally” which appeared as a B side to the “Help” single with Ringo on lead vocals. 🙂
September 4, 2014 @ 6:39 am
I think Ringo was the biggest country fan of the bunch.
Here’s Buck and Ringo together:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHeRq6DdxHE
September 4, 2014 @ 7:27 am
Ringo’s second solo album was a country record, wasn’t it?
Paul McCartney also claimed to be a country music fan when he and Linda spent a month in Nashville, back in the 70’s. This song was recorded during that trip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuMTuSDM094
September 4, 2014 @ 7:37 am
Yes, I believe you’re right. I remember reading a Peter Cooper article on it some months back. Ray Wylie covered Ringo’s “Coochy, Coochy” from it on his last album.
September 4, 2014 @ 9:52 am
I think Ringo was the biggest country fan of the bunch.
Yep. From what I remember, Ringo liked the older music better; I remember a comment from him back in 1996 in which he said something to the effect that he really didn’t like much of the newer stuff except for George Strait.
September 7, 2014 @ 12:03 pm
I don’t outright say there’s any connection, but even before reading this comment about Ringo being a fan of classic country, I was thinking that he was the only Beatle I had a lot of respect for as a human being 🙂
September 3, 2014 @ 5:31 pm
Glad I’m not the only one who realizes what a waste of space John Lennon was. In addition to being verbally and physically abusive to women as well as an adulterer he also mostly ignored and then basically sold his first son Julian.
March 29, 2022 @ 7:28 pm
Lennon was brilliant. You, not so much
September 4, 2014 @ 2:41 am
Soon to be at a hard rock cafe, somewhere in the world…
-W
September 4, 2014 @ 7:02 am
The interesting thing is that at first it seems odd that Waylon and Lennon would be acquainted, but when you stop and think about it, it kinda makes sense. They were contemporaries as popular musical artists, they had a connection through the music of Buddy Holly, and there is enough rock and roll bluster in Waylon’s brand of country that it’s not surprising John Lennon would cotton to it. Throughout his life, Lennon always said his favorite music was good old fashioned rock and roll.
September 5, 2014 @ 1:59 pm
I am always amazed that the rock stars from Britain appreciate and know more about country music and its history than North American artists. Besides Lennon and Ringo, you can look at Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Elvis Costello.
September 5, 2014 @ 11:53 pm
I suppose this is because in Britain, country music is considered fascinating due to its status as a uniquely American form of music.
In America, on the other hand, country music is mired in a bunch of negative social connotations.
This is a great example of the idea that “closeness breeds contempt”.
September 7, 2014 @ 12:07 pm
It’s really kind of interesting, because jazz still gets at least critical respect, and blues gets cultural respect (if not a whole lot of people actually listening to it), but homegrown bluegrass and classic country never much got either of those in the US, outside of the folkie movement in the early Sixties (bluegrass) and sporadic hiccups heard from Hollywood (and I don’t know if they were exactly “respectful” of it even then, they way they are breathless with admiration for blues and jazz).
May 12, 2015 @ 12:17 am
The influence of country musicians on the Beatles also includes Chet Atkins’ acknowledged effect on George Harrison’s early guitar style. See George’s liner notes for Atkins’ 1966 album, “Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles.”
May 6, 2016 @ 12:34 pm
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2016/05/ominous-curses-and-dark-mysteries-of-the-musical-world/
Waylon, Buddy, John….found this interesting today.
June 5, 2016 @ 7:49 am
Really?? Why should anyone even give a rat’s ass?
March 29, 2022 @ 7:29 pm
scrubbing comments I see
May 27, 2024 @ 7:42 pm
John Lennon and Waylon Jennings……separated by an ocean,but akin musically.