On the night of March 23, 2002, the friends of Waylon Jennings had sung for two hours inside Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Then the live music stopped. Over a darkened stage, a recording began to play, and the voice coming through the speakers belonged to the man they had come to bury in song. Waylon had died more than a month earlier. The recording was a piano ballad called “The Dream,” and that night was the first time it had ever been heard in public. The Associated Press described it as the last song Waylon wrote and recorded.
It was a strange, beautiful way to end a memorial. And the way the room answered it is the part of the story most people never heard.
A Stage Set for a Man Who Wasn’t There
The service carried the name of one of his biggest records: I’ve Always Been Crazy: A Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Waylon Jennings. The Ryman stage was draped with the black backdrop and silver “W” logo from his road show. In front of it stood his black guitar, his black cowboy hat resting on top, with red rose petals scattered nearby. Out in the seats, the AP noted, the crowd was dotted with black cowboy hats and Waylon T-shirts.
The lineup reflected the two worlds Waylon lived in. Travis Tritt told the audience Waylon kept one foot in country and one in rock ‘n’ roll, then tore into “Lonesome, On’ry and Mean” backed by the Waymore’s Blues Band, Waylon’s last road band. Charley Pride sang “Good Hearted Woman,” recalled that Waylon had once offered him that song, and showed the crowd a ring Waylon had given him years before. He still wore it.
Kris Kristofferson sang “I Do Believe,” a song Waylon wrote, and admitted that knowing he’d one day honor Waylon at the Ryman
“might have helped me through some hard spots.”
Billy Ray Cyrus and David Lee Murphy performed. Statements were read from Paul Simon, Graham Nash and Neil Diamond. The eulogy came from the Rev. Will Campbell, a writer and civil rights veteran who had once worked as Waylon’s cook.
The Song His Son Was Asked to Sing
Waylon’s son Shooter Jennings, then fronting a Los Angeles rock band called Stargunn, opened the service and later performed with Stargunn. Before he did, the crowd was told something that changed the meaning of the moment. According to CMT’s report from that night, a speaker passed along word from Waylon’s widow, Jessi Colter: Waylon had wanted Shooter to sing “I’ve Always Been Crazy” at his funeral.
So Shooter did, with Stargunn and his father’s band behind him. He told the room his dad had taught all of them how to rock. At the very end of the night, Shooter came back out to thank everyone for coming, and to say that the family had enjoyed themselves too, in language his father would have recognized.
What It Cost to Get Here
The celebration had a hard road behind it. Waylon lived with diabetes for years, and in December 2001 doctors amputated his left foot. On February 13, 2002, he died at his home in Chandler, Arizona. He was 64.
There is a quiet detail here that longtime fans will feel. Waylon’s last major concert had been on this very stage, the Ryman, in January 2000. He played it sitting down. He joked to the crowd that he’d noticed them noticing the chair, and that it wasn’t all old age. Two years later, his guitar sat on that same stage without him.
When the Lights Went Down
According to CMT, “The Dream” played over a darkened stage. It was a soft, piano-led song, a world away from the hard-driving Waylon sound most people knew. In it, he sets real life against a dream and decides that the dream never measured up to the life he had actually lived. Coming from a man who had just died, after everything he’d been through, that idea landed with real weight.
The audience didn’t stay quiet. As his voice filled the old church, the AP reported, people called back to him:
“God bless you Waylon!” and “We love you Waylon!”
He couldn’t hear it, of course. But maybe that was the most Waylon Jennings ending possible: a room full of people answering him out loud.
Was It Really His Last Song?
Here is where the story gets more complicated than the headlines from that weekend. The reports did not all say the same thing:
March 2002, Associated Press: the last song Waylon wrote and recorded.
March 2002, CMT: the last song Waylon recorded, heard publicly for the first time.
January 2003, Rolling Stone: a previously unreleased track and one of the last songs he ever recorded.
Then, in 2012, a different set of final recordings surfaced. Goin’ Down Rockin’: The Last Recordings collected eight unreleased songs Waylon had written and recorded with his bassist Robby Turner during his last years. Turner held onto the vocal tracks for years before finishing them with some of Waylon’s longtime players. None of the sources says exactly when “The Dream” was cut compared with those sessions, so the safest way to put it is the way Rolling Stone did: it was one of the very last things Waylon Jennings ever recorded.
Where the Song Went Next
“The Dream” didn’t stay a one-night memory. It became the closing track of I’ve Always Been Crazy: A Tribute to Waylon Jennings, released by RCA, Waylon’s longtime label. The album was first announced for April 2003 and finally came out on August 19, 2003. Waylon’s own voice came last, after Brooks & Dunn, Alison Krauss, Ben Harper, Andy Griggs and Metallica’s James Hetfield. Shooter’s band Stargunn recorded the same song he had sung at the Ryman: “I’ve Always Been Crazy.” When the album was first announced, Rolling Stone also listed Jessi Colter reprising “Storms Never Last,” the song she wrote and first recorded with Waylon.
The family and friends got a song he left behind. Waylon got the last word at his own goodbye.
If you’ve never heard it, look for “The Dream” as the final track on I’ve Always Been Crazy: A Tribute to Waylon Jennings. Play it all the way through, and picture an old church in Nashville with the lights down low.
Sources
Associated Press, “Jennings remembered at memorial,” March 2002 (as published by Billboard, “Waylon Jennings Remembered In Nashville”)
CMT News, “Waylon Jennings Gets A Rousing Nashville Send-off,” March 2002
Rolling Stone, “Kid Rock Salutes Waylon,” January 3, 2003
Blabbermouth, track listing and release date for I’ve Always Been Crazy, July 11, 2003
NPR, “Waylon Jennings: The ‘Last Recordings’ Of A Dreamer,” October 2, 2012
American Songwriter, “Watch Waylon Jennings Play Final Concert at Ryman Auditorium in 2000”
Saving Country Music, “Remembering The Final Big Concert from Waylon Jennings”