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HE WOULD BECOME ONE OF COUNTRY MUSIC’S MOST FAMOUS OUTLAWS. SHE GREW UP PLAYING PIANO IN HER PREACHER MOTHER’S CHURCH. When Jessi Colter married Waylon Jennings in 1969, he already had three marriages behind him and years of hard living ahead. There were pills. Later, cocaine. Long nights on the road, addiction, and the kind of chaos that eventually became part of the Waylon Jennings legend. Jessi came from a different world. Her mother was a Pentecostal minister, and Jessi had been singing and playing piano in church since childhood. Their marriage was never a fairy tale. Jessi later spoke openly about how close Waylon’s addiction came to destroying what they had. But the marriage survived. By the end of 2001, diabetes had become so severe that Waylon’s left foot was amputated. Less than two months later, on February 13, 2002, he died in his sleep at their Arizona home. Jessi was still his wife after more than 32 years. Years later, she released *The Psalms*, music drawn from the faith she had carried since childhood. Not every love story ends with a song. Some end with a prayer.

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He Became Country Music’s Outlaw. She Came From a Church Pulpit and a Piano Bench. When Jessi Colter married Waylon…

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BILLY JOE SHAVER’S SON DIED TWO DAYS BEFORE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BEGIN THE SOLO ALBUM HE HAD WAITED YEARS TO MAKE. Eddy Shaver spent most of his career beside his father. He was the fire behind Billy Joe’s songs, a gifted guitarist who also played with artists including Dwight Yoakam and Willie Nelson while recording acclaimed albums with his dad as Shaver. But Eddy wanted something of his own. In late December 2000, he signed a solo deal with Antone’s Records. He was scheduled to begin recording a new U.S. solo album on January 2, 2001. He never made it. Eddy was found unconscious in a Waco hotel room and died early on December 31. He was 38. Billy Joe had spent years standing beside his only son onstage. Eddy was finally about to make a record with his own name out front. He died just two days before the sessions were supposed to begin.

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Billy Joe Shaver’s Son Died Just Days Before the Solo Album Eddy Had Waited Years to Make Eddy Shaver spent…

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Years after Waylon Jennings died, Jessi Colter said people still liked to remember the darkest years — but she remembered what happened after them. She never pretended those years were easy. Waylon’s drug use frightened her. He tried more than once to stop, and Jessi eventually reached a point where she knew she could not simply stand by and watch. Then something changed. Jessi said that when Waylon finally pulled himself out of that life, “he never touched anything again.” And she remembered a promise he made afterward: “I’m making a mark for the good for the rest of my life.” She believed he kept it. Waylon died on February 13, 2002, at 64. By then, the roughest years of his life had become the part of his story people loved to repeat. But Jessi remembered what came next. Waylon got out. And when he promised to spend the rest of his life doing good, she believed he did exactly that.

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What Jessi Colter Remembered After the Darkest Years Years after Waylon Jennings died on February 13, 2002, Jessi Colter seemed…

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The night before Chet Atkins was laid to rest, Jerry Reed called Steve Wariner and talked about Chet for 45 minutes. But when the funeral came, Jerry couldn’t make himself go. Chet died at his Nashville home on June 30, 2001. He was 77. For Jerry, he had been far more than another great guitarist. Chet had helped bring him to RCA, encouraged him to stop trying to sound like everyone else, and became one of his closest musical partners. They spent decades trading guitar lines, recording together, and pushing each other into places few players could follow. Chet even said Jerry had taken the fingerstyle approach farther than he had. The night before Chet’s service, Jerry poured all of that into a phone call with Wariner. Then came the next day. Jerry simply told him, “I can’t do it.” For a man who could usually turn anything into a joke, losing Chet apparently left him with nothing funny to say.

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The Night Jerry Reed Could Not Bring Himself to Go When Chet Atkins died at his Nashville home on June…

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When Waylon Jennings died, Kris Kristofferson remembered the man behind the outlaw image simply as “the bad guy with a big heart.” Waylon died at his Arizona home on February 13, 2002. He was 64. By then, Kris had known him for decades. They had recorded and toured together in the Highwaymen alongside Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. But when Kris talked about Waylon after his death, he did not start with records or awards. He remembered introducing him to Muhammad Ali. Kris said the two men immediately became like “two little kids,” delighted with each other. What stayed with him was what they had in common: beneath two intimidating public images were men who could be remarkably openhearted toward people. Waylon spent years looking like one of country music’s toughest outlaws — black hat, beard, hard stare and a reputation for doing things his own way. But when Kris had to describe his old friend after he was gone, the part he remembered was the big heart.

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Waylon Jennings and the Big Heart Behind the Outlaw Image When Waylon Jennings died at his home in Arizona on…

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AFTER NASHVILLE HAD NEARLY LEFT JOHNNY CASH BEHIND, RICK RUBIN PUT HIM IN FRONT OF A MICROPHONE WITH LITTLE MORE THAN A GUITAR — AND HIS CAREER CAME ALIVE AGAIN. By the early 1990s, Johnny Cash was no longer dominating country radio. He had left Columbia in 1986, spent years at Mercury with little commercial success, and watched Nashville move toward a younger generation. Then Rick Rubin called. Instead of giving Cash a modern country makeover, Rubin stripped almost everything away. On American Recordings, released in 1994, Cash’s weathered voice often stood beside nothing more than his acoustic guitar. He sang murder ballads, folk songs, new material and songs written by younger artists. There was nowhere for that voice to hide. And suddenly, nobody wanted it to. The album was widely praised and won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1995, beginning the final great chapter of Cash’s recording career. Nashville had moved on. Johnny Cash came back by removing everything except Johnny Cash.

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Johnny Cash, Rick Rubin, and the Album That Brought a Legend Back to Life By the early 1990s, Johnny Cash…

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RANDY TRAVIS WENT ALMOST NINE YEARS WITHOUT A NO. 1 — THEN A GOSPEL SONG GAVE HIM ONE MORE. By the early 2000s, Randy Travis no longer ruled country radio the way he once had. His last Billboard country No. 1 had come in 1994 with “Whisper My Name.” Then he heard “Three Wooden Crosses.” Written by Doug Johnson and Kim Williams, the song told a story of faith, death and redemption. Randy was so struck by its final twist that he stopped his treadmill, rewound the cassette and listened again. Country radio responded too. In 2003, “Three Wooden Crosses” reached No. 1 — Randy’s first in almost nine years and ultimately his 16th and final Billboard country chart-topper. It also became the CMA Song of the Year. The song came from a gospel album. But it carried Randy Travis back to the top of country music. Sometimes the song nobody expects is the one that gives a legend one last No. 1.

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Randy Travis and the Song That Brought Him Back to No. 1 By the early 2000s, Randy Travis was already…

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Ten months after Waylon Jennings died, Jessi Colter sat at a white piano in Phoenix and sang a song about wanting just one more night with someone you love. Waylon died at their home in Chandler, Arizona, on February 13, 2002. He was 64. He and Jessi had been married for more than 32 years. Then, on December 30, at a gathering thrown by Waylon’s family at Phoenix’s Rhythm Room, Jessi went to the piano and played Elvis Presley’s “One Night.” A reporter there noted that the choice did not feel accidental. Earlier that evening, Jessi had said it was time to say goodbye to sorrow. For decades, she had sung beside Waylon, survived the hardest years with him, and built a life around the man behind the outlaw image. Now his chair was empty. And instead of singing one of Waylon’s songs, Jessi chose one about wishing one night could somehow be enough.

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Ten Months After Waylon Jennings Died, Jessi Colter Chose a Song About One More Night Ten months after Waylon Jennings…

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Billy Joe Shaver’s final performance happened in a kitchen. The last song he sang was “Live Forever” — a song he had written with the son he had already buried. In April 2020, with COVID shutting down stages, longtime guitarist Jeremy Lynn Woodall came to Billy Joe’s home to record a small performance. No crowd. No spotlight. Just Billy Joe in his kitchen, singing the song he and Eddy Shaver had written years earlier. By then, life had taken almost everything it could. A sawmill accident had cost him two fingers and part of another. In 1999, he lost both his wife Brenda and his mother to cancer. The next year, Eddy died. Then in 2001, Billy Joe suffered a heart attack onstage at Gruene Hall and survived bypass surgery. Still, he kept going. He had written or co-written nine songs on Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes, helping give outlaw country some of its most important words. About six months after that kitchen performance, Billy Joe died from a stroke at 81. Then, in 2022, Willie Nelson, George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Steve Earle and others recorded his songs for a tribute album. Its title was Live Forever. That kitchen performance wasn’t prophecy. It was something even better. Billy Joe Shaver had spent his whole life proving the song true.

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Billy Joe Shaver’s Final Song in the Kitchen In the spring of 2020, when stages were dark and live music…

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WAYLON JENNINGS SPENT A LIFETIME DISTRUSTING OTHER PEOPLE’S ANSWERS ABOUT GOD. THEN HE WROTE HIS OWN. Waylon grew up in the Church of Christ in West Texas, hearing the kind of fire-and-brimstone preaching that stayed with him long after he stopped going to church. He never liked being told exactly what God was supposed to look like, who was going to heaven, or who deserved hell. That tension followed him for years. Then, in the 1990s, Waylon sat down and wrote “I Do Believe.” Jessi Colter later said the song surprised her. Waylon rarely expressed his faith that openly. But the message was unmistakable: he believed in God — just not through fear or somebody else’s rules. His faith was personal, imperfect, and entirely his own. Before the Highwaymen recorded it, Waylon played the song for his friend Will D. Campbell, the unconventional preacher and writer. Campbell listened and gave him two words: “That’ll preach.” The Highwaymen released “I Do Believe” on The Road Goes on Forever in 1995. It was never a major hit. Waylon later said he thought it might be the best song he ever wrote. For a man who spent his career refusing to let Nashville tell him how to sing, it made sense that he eventually refused to let anyone else tell him how to believe. Waylon Jennings never needed someone else to write his answer about God. Eventually, he wrote it himself.

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Waylon Jennings and the Faith He Would Not Borrow Waylon Jennings did not spend his life chasing neat answers. He…

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HE WOULD BECOME ONE OF COUNTRY MUSIC’S MOST FAMOUS OUTLAWS. SHE GREW UP PLAYING PIANO IN HER PREACHER MOTHER’S CHURCH. When Jessi Colter married Waylon Jennings in 1969, he already had three marriages behind him and years of hard living ahead. There were pills. Later, cocaine. Long nights on the road, addiction, and the kind of chaos that eventually became part of the Waylon Jennings legend. Jessi came from a different world. Her mother was a Pentecostal minister, and Jessi had been singing and playing piano in church since childhood. Their marriage was never a fairy tale. Jessi later spoke openly about how close Waylon’s addiction came to destroying what they had. But the marriage survived. By the end of 2001, diabetes had become so severe that Waylon’s left foot was amputated. Less than two months later, on February 13, 2002, he died in his sleep at their Arizona home. Jessi was still his wife after more than 32 years. Years later, she released *The Psalms*, music drawn from the faith she had carried since childhood. Not every love story ends with a song. Some end with a prayer.

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BILLY JOE SHAVER’S SON DIED TWO DAYS BEFORE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BEGIN THE SOLO ALBUM HE HAD WAITED YEARS TO MAKE. Eddy Shaver spent most of his career beside his father. He was the fire behind Billy Joe’s songs, a gifted guitarist who also played with artists including Dwight Yoakam and Willie Nelson while recording acclaimed albums with his dad as Shaver. But Eddy wanted something of his own. In late December 2000, he signed a solo deal with Antone’s Records. He was scheduled to begin recording a new U.S. solo album on January 2, 2001. He never made it. Eddy was found unconscious in a Waco hotel room and died early on December 31. He was 38. Billy Joe had spent years standing beside his only son onstage. Eddy was finally about to make a record with his own name out front. He died just two days before the sessions were supposed to begin.

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Years after Waylon Jennings died, Jessi Colter said people still liked to remember the darkest years — but she remembered what happened after them. She never pretended those years were easy. Waylon’s drug use frightened her. He tried more than once to stop, and Jessi eventually reached a point where she knew she could not simply stand by and watch. Then something changed. Jessi said that when Waylon finally pulled himself out of that life, “he never touched anything again.” And she remembered a promise he made afterward: “I’m making a mark for the good for the rest of my life.” She believed he kept it. Waylon died on February 13, 2002, at 64. By then, the roughest years of his life had become the part of his story people loved to repeat. But Jessi remembered what came next. Waylon got out. And when he promised to spend the rest of his life doing good, she believed he did exactly that.

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The night before Chet Atkins was laid to rest, Jerry Reed called Steve Wariner and talked about Chet for 45 minutes. But when the funeral came, Jerry couldn’t make himself go. Chet died at his Nashville home on June 30, 2001. He was 77. For Jerry, he had been far more than another great guitarist. Chet had helped bring him to RCA, encouraged him to stop trying to sound like everyone else, and became one of his closest musical partners. They spent decades trading guitar lines, recording together, and pushing each other into places few players could follow. Chet even said Jerry had taken the fingerstyle approach farther than he had. The night before Chet’s service, Jerry poured all of that into a phone call with Wariner. Then came the next day. Jerry simply told him, “I can’t do it.” For a man who could usually turn anything into a joke, losing Chet apparently left him with nothing funny to say.