Waylon Jennings “Didn’t Like” Jessi Colter When They First Met

A love story that lasted decades. Of course, Waylon Jennings was famously married to fellow country outlaw artist Jessi Colter for 33 years, and he credits her with helping him get clean from his drug addiction, which is an amazing story you can read about HERE.

The pair met in the ’60s in Arizona at JD’s nightclub and got married in October of 1969. They remained married until Waylon’s death in 2002 and share one child together, Shooter, who is a highly respected producer in country music.

In a great 1988 interview with SPIN, Waylon recalled how he met Jessi and the first time they sang together, when he was friends with Jessi’s husband at the time, guitarist Duane Eddy. Eddy had actually asked Waylon to sing a duet Jessi had written with her, and that was the extent of any sort of relationship for a while:

“I had been friends with Duane Eddy, and we’re still great friends, I call him my husband-in-law. But when I first met Jessi, she was married to Duane. She had written this duet and Duane is from Phoenix and I was in Phoenix and he asked me if I would sing the duet with her. And I remember that we went down there and they put her on a box beside me.”

They sang the song and didn’t see each other again until Jessi and Duane were in the process of getting divorced. Of course, Waylon asked her out but Jessi told him to call her once the divorce was finalized:

“I didn’t meet her again until she and Duane were in the process of getting a divorce. She was born in Phoenix, and I was working in a club there and she came out. I asked her if she wanted to go out with me and she says, ‘Well, call me in a month when my divorce is final.’ So then we got together. You know, when I first met her I didn’t like her. She made me madder than anybody in the world. Now I didn’t realize it until a few months later, but she did it on purpose. She would do things that aggravated me, because she liked to see that fire, as she called it.”

Well, I think all great relationships start that way to a certain extent, and who could blame Jessi for it? The woman was dealing with Waylon Jennings, not some normal guy from down the block. She had to be that way, and ultimately, I think he respected the hell out of it.

And when asked about all the “women on the road,” Waylon responded very honestly, as always, saying:

“Oh yeah, and Jessi’s had a lot of things to understand. You know, I’ve been married three times before. Jessi and I have a very honest relationship. Things I did then I can change now. It wasn’t easy on her. She’s probably the only person in the world that would put up with me. In fact, I would venture to say that she is the only person in the world who could have been married to me and stayed with me.”

Clearly, they were meant to be, and Jessi certainly made him a better man, standing by him through all the ups and downs of his legendary country music career.

And I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Waylon and Jessi videos, where Waylon and Jessi joke about his “poetic license” with a line in his classic song, “Waymore’s Blues”.

Source: SPIN, YOUTUBE