If any one performer personified the "outlaw country movement" of the '70s, it was Waylon Arnold Jennings. Born June 15, 1937, in Littlefield, Texas, he was the son of Lorene Beatrice (née Shipley) and William Alvin Jennings.

Though he had been a professional musician since the late '50s, it wasn't until the '70s that Waylon, with his imposing baritone and stripped-down, updated honky tonk, became a superstar. Jennings rejected the conventions of Nashville, refusing to record with the country industry's studio musicians and insisting that his music never resemble the string-laden, pop-inflected sounds that were coming out of Nashville in the '60s. Many artists, including Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, followed Waylon's anti-Nashville stance and eventually the whole "outlaw movement," so-named because of the artists' ragged, maverick image and their independence from Nashville, became one of th.....MORE.....(full Waylon Jennings biography) ←