Music legend dies

He was 64. Jennings, a singer, songwriter and guitarist, recorded 60 albums and had 16 No 1 country singles in a career that spanned five decades and began when he played bass for Buddy Holly.

Jennings' spokeswoman Schatzie Hageman said Jennings died peacefully at his home in Arizona yesterday.

Jennings, a singer, songwriter and guitarist, recorded 60 albums and had 16 No 1 country singles in a career that spanned five decades and began when he played bass for Buddy Holly. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in October.

He had been plagued with diabetes-related health problems in recent years that made it difficult for him to walk. In December, his left foot was amputated at a Phoenix hospital.

"Waylon was a dear friend, one of the very best of 35 years," said Johnny Cash, who recorded and toured with Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson as The Highwaymen. "I'll miss him immensely."

George Jones called it a "great loss for country music", and Emmylou Harris said Jennings "had a voice and a way with a song like no one else."

"He was also a class act as an artist and a man," she said.

Jennings and his wife, singer Jessi Colter, sold their home in Nashville more than a year ago and moved to Chandler, Arizona.

With pal Willie Nelson, Jennings performed duets like Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys, Luckenbach and Good Hearted Woman. Those 1970s songs nurtured a progressive sound and restless spirit embraced later by Travis Tritt, Charlie Daniels, Steve Earle and others.

His resonant, authoritative voice also was used to narrate the popular TV show The Dukes of Hazzard. He sang its theme song, which was a million seller.

"I aimed the narration at children and it made it work," he said in a 1987 interview.

He traditionally wore a black cowboy hat and ebony attire that accented his black beard and moustache. Often reclusive when not on stage, he played earthy music with a spirited, hard edge. Combined, Jennings had a well-defined image that matched well with his history of battling record producers to do music his way.

About his independence, he said: "There's always one more way to do something - your way."

Some of his album titles nourished his brash persona: Lonesome, On'ry and Mean, I've Always Been Crazy, Nashville Rebel, Ladies Love Outlaws and Wanted: The Outlaws.

He often refused to attend music awards shows on grounds performers should not compete against each other. Despite those sentiments, Jennings won two Grammy awards and four Country Music Association awards. He did not attend his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame last year.

In 1959, his career was nearly cut short by tragedy. He was scheduled to fly on the light plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. Jennings gave up his seat on the plane to the Big Bopper, who was ill and wanted to fly rather than travel by bus with those left behind.

He and Holly were teenage friends in Lubbock, Texas, and Jennings was in Holly's band.

"Mainly what I learned from Buddy was an attitude," Jennings said. He loved music, and he taught me that it shouldn't have any barriers to it."

Born in Littlefield, Texas, Jennings became a radio disc jockey at 14 and formed his own band not long afterwards.

By the early 1960s Jennings was playing regularly at a nightclub in Phoenix. In 1963, he was signed by Herb Alpert's A&M Records, then was signed by RCA in Nashville shortly thereafter by Chet Atkins. Once in Nashville, he and Cash became friends and roommates.

His hit records began in the mid-1960s and his heyday was the mid-1970s.

About his outlaw image, he said: "It was a good marketing tool. In a way, I am that way. You start messing with my music, I get mean. As long was you are honest and up front with me, I will be the same with you. But I still do things my way."

His other hit singles included I'm A Ramblin' Man, Amanda, Lucille, I've Always Been Crazy and Rose in Paradise.

His Greatest Hits album in 1979 sold 4 million - a rare accomplishment in country music for that era.

In the mid-1980s, he joined with Nelson, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson to form the quartet the Highwaymen, which recorded together and did concert tours.

"I'd like to be remembered for my music - not necessarily by what people see when they see us - but what they feel when they talk about you," he said in 1984.

"Some people have their music. My music has me."

He made occasional forays into TV movies, including Stagecoach and Oklahoma City Dolls, plus the Sesame Street movie Follow That Bird and the B-movie Nashville Rebel.

He has said he spent 21 years on drugs and had a dlrs 1,500 (£1,000)-a-day cocaine habit.

"I did more drugs than anybody you ever saw in your life," he told the Country Music Association's Close Up magazine in 1994.

In 1977, he was arrested at a Nashville recording studio and charged with conspiracy and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The charges were later dismissed.

He kicked the habit in 1984 by leasing a house in Arizona and going cold turkey, he said.

He and Colter, his fourth wife, married in 1969. They had one son, Shooter.

AP