Legendary singer-songwriter Jessi Colter, sits down with music journalist, Rachel Winston for an intimate discussion of life, the music business, and her love Waylon Jennings. Watch a true love story, and witness the wisdom of a lady who charmed the outlaws and held her own in the "outlaw movement." Takes place in the historic RCA Studios in Nashville, TN.
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Jessi Colter is wise, spiritual, classy, smart, and could give any girl lessons on how to be a woman every man wants. She was the one woman who hung in there with the men during the outlaw movement and was able to stay a lady. When I came to Nashville, I surrounded myself with the same type of musicians and have always looked to her for inspiration.
Jessi and I had known each other for a few years before we sat down at the historic RCA on Music Row. This famed studio once occupied by Chet Atkins brought back memories for her. Chet played a defining role in Jessi's career, taking her first 5 songs and getting hits with them. He also impacted the career of her late husband, Waylon Jennings. A black and white photo of Waylon and Chet hangs on a nearby wall, giving physical evidence of yesteryear. Waylon was one of the original outlaws who made an imprint on country music and many people's lives. He was definite, trailblazing a path in a "creative vortex" so powerful it shaped an entire movement. He called Jessi his leaning post and she was with him every step of the way.
Before meeting Waylon, Jessi was a successful singer-songwriter with a budding career. She first met Waylon at a writing session and the rest of it unfolds like a story that was meant to be told. The daughter of a Pentecostal preacher found herself falling for a man with a righteous calling to music, but demons followed closely along the way. She explained, "What he was doing was right in pursuing the music and the passion he had for it and the songs, all that made it easier. It was like Waylon was working all the time, so yes, at first he got into diet pills and then into some other things, nothing like what they call today hard drugs. I think he just wanted to stay up." Jessi said the years just flowed, and if it had just been some guy getting high and doing drugs, she wouldn't have been there. She saw early on that this was a man who had something to offer the world with a heart bigger than his home state of Texas.
Dealing with sharing Waylon with the world became the next challenge after making the journey to the top in music during that time. "As Waylon approached such great success album after album I thought oh gosh, I've dealt with all of the hard times we had when there's no money, we really weren't getting paid and everyone was shafting us. Can I deal with this?" Fame came after time, but in those days there were years of playing clubs for no money and gaining lots of real-life writing material along the way. "It was the man and the music or the woman and the music, it's their life," she described. Times have changed and picking up a guitar and taking the fast lane to stardom has become common place. Jessi explained that she has no way to equate how it would be to handle this, noting that the sudden echoing of your name is a swim. Swimming in this unknown place has proven to be too much for so many artists experiencing this kind of rise to fame. Keeping your roots solid and having great people around you is the only way Jessi sees a successful ending with this scenario.
Her smile lights up every room and her angelically startling voice is a cornerstone in country music history. Songs like "Im Not Lisa" and "Storms Never Last" could only be written by a woman and have the depth and emotion to stop you in your tracks. If you are looking to go into music, or are in love with an outlaw, this interview is your guide to handle both with grace.