Criminals Wanted

Everyone knows the stereotype of rappers being criminals. Rappers are trumpeted as the toughest people in the music industry. Why? No idea. Somehow I get the feeling that the toughest people in the music industry are not going to be poets. Country musicians are generally seen by most as being goofy or square. They sing songs about loving your pick up truck and the glory of the star spangled banner. For the most part that is true; country music has a number of flaws and is rather lame. But there are a few musicians in country music who say no to clean Christian living and yes to rock and roll, drinking, and whore-mongering, gambling, fighting, shooting and being general bad asses. Country music is one of the foundations of rock and roll (along with the blues, gospel, folk, bluegrass and rockabilly) and every once and a while there comes along a real outlaw to make the whole genre interesting again.

Billy Joe Shaver

Coming straight out of Waco is Billy Joe Shaver, a man surrounded by tragedy and loss. He is an old cowboy and has written songs for Waylon Jennings, Elvis Presley and Kris Kristofferson. Shaver lost his wife to cancer, his son/lead guitarist to a heroin overdose and has survived a heart attack. When I think of a good country music I think of a guy like Billy sitting on a porch somewhere in west Texas strumming his guitar and humming to himself. Oh, and Billy Joe Shaver shot a man outside a tavern in Lorena Texas last year.

Waylon Jennings

The former bass player for Buddy Holly (He gave the Big Bopper his seat on the plane) he was a true outlaw country musician and is best known for writing the theme to the Dukes of Hazzard and being the show’s narrator. He had shared an apartment with Johnny Cash in 1966. He once dynamited a building outside a club which refused to pay him. In the early 1970s he received a $75,000 advance for signing with RCA and was given complete artistic control. He then proceeded to blow all his money on cocaine, and, when he was finally arrested, managed to get off because of massive screw up on the part of the Drug Enforcement Agency. As a testament to how tough Jennings was (died in 2002) he quit coke cold turkey.

Merle Haggard

Merle first went to prison at the age of 13. At 14, he ran away to Texas but returned to his home state of California later that year where he was arrested again. He was sent to jail a third time after he was arrested for beating a boy while committing a robbery. Merle and some friends had gotten drunk, and decided to rob a restaurant (they thought it was three in the morning, turned out to be ten at night). He was sentenced to ten years in San Quentin in1957. In San Quentin he saw Johnny Cash perform and along with the advice from Caryl Chessman (a convicted rapist, crook, writer, executed May 2, 1960) decided to mend his ways and devote himself to something greater, country music.

Huddie William Ledbetter

Ledbetter is mostly known as a folk singer but he is too talented and bad ass to leave out of this list. He was born in Texas in 1888 or 1889. No one really knows his actual birth date. He played eight instruments, made most of his early recordings (including Midnight Special) in prison after he was convicted of stabbing a man and apparently earned his nickname Lead Belly from receiving a stomach full of buck shot from a shotgun. Lead belly is country, blues, folk and true Americana.
Bob Dylan said he is the only ex-con to ever have a hit children’s album and once convinced the governor of Texas to pardon him with a song after the governor was elected on a no-pardon ticket. Lead belly was convicted of carrying a pistol in 1915, stabbing a man in 1930, stabbed another man in 1939. He was also rumored to have killed a man with his bare hands. He died in 1949.

George Jones

He was born in Saratoga Texas,1931. George Jones has one of the greatest voices in country music and earned the nickname “No Show Jones” for his tendency to skip shows in favor of drinking. George Jones was hell sent and whiskey bent. He would hide bottles of vodka in the orchard behind his house so that his wife wouldn’t bother him while he drank himself stupid. He developed a massive cocaine problem and rocked out. One time his wife attempted to hide his car keys from him in order to prevent him from drinking and driving, so he took his riding lawn mower to the bar instead and proceeded to drink like a fish. He usually started each morning with a screw driver and then it was a one way ticket to bourbon city. He was often broke and had to rely on Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash for financial assistance. He has been married four times and is now just a nice guy who sings songs, owns a diner, and is receiving a Kennedy Center Honor this year.

While writing this it was interesting to note that all five of these men have some kind of connection to Johnny Cash. Cash played songs written by Lead Belly and either performed with, knew or influenced the rest. Cash had some wild early years but was very spiritual and close friends with Billy Graham. Billy Graham disqualifies anyone. Willie Nelson was busted for not paying taxes and marijuana but those crimes seem rather small compared to what Haggard accomplished in his early years. Kris Kristofferson was a drunk but also a West Point graduate and a trained US army ranger. He could kill you, but he was generally too laid back to do so. Chuck Berry was a good ol’ country boy but he was pure rock and roll, but since Lead Belly is on the list, Berry gets honorable mentions. Chuck Berry was convicted of armed robbery in 1944. He was arrested again in 1959 when he tried to smuggle a 14-year-old Apache girl across state lines in violation of the Mann act.

Hank Williams is another name that pops into mind when one thinks of all time country music bad asses, Hank is a post in unto himself. Like all great modern music, what made these musicians great is that they sang about their passion and their problems. They made their music that much more real and had true insight into the human condition. Outlaws, criminals, men, people - at the end of the day, they had their moment in the sun.

(Shaver being awesome)