If any one performer exemplified the outlaw country movement of the '70s, it was Waylon Jennings. Though he had been a professional musician since the late '50s, it wasn't until the '70s that Waylon, with his imposing baritone and stripped-down, updated honky-tonk, became a superstar.
Jennings rejected the conventions of Nashville, refusing to record with the industry's legions of studio musicians and insisting that his music didn't resemble the string-laden, pop-inflected sounds that were coming out of Nashville in the '60s and '70s.
Many artists, including Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, followed Waylon's anti-Nashville stance and eventually the whole outlaw movement became one of the most significant country forces of the '70s, helping the genre adhere to its hardcore honky-tonk roots.
Jennings didn't write many songs, but his music, which combined the grittiest aspects of honky-tonk with a rock & roll rhythm and attitude, making the music spare, direct and edgy; defined hardcore country and it influenced countless musicians, including members of the new traditionalist and alternative country subgenres of the '80s.
