remember. The reflection in the mirror, it ain’t you, it ain’t you.” I had learned that Willie believed in reincarnation and considered that he may have passed along his belief to Waylon. I thought it would be an idea we could work with. This was our first session, and we spent the morning getting to know each other. Waylon was very generous with his stories, and I was, of course, thrilled to hear them all. The wildest tale was about the time he was busted at his own studio on Music Row.

    Richie Albright, Waylon’s longtime drummer and producer, was engineering a vocal session for a cut of Jessi Colter’s song, “Storms Never Last”, as a collaboration with Hank Jr. and Waylon. They were in the tracking room with lights low when DEA agents entered the control room with a warrant to search the premises. They had been informed that cocaine had been delivered there from a recent flight. When the agents barged in on the session, Richie discreetly pushed the talkback so Waylon and Hank could hear everything being said through their headphones. Waylon quickly tossed what was left of the cocaine stash behind a baseboard before entering the control room. The agent presented the warrant, and Waylon saw that the address was for his office building next door: 1117 17th Avenue. The studio address where they were was 1111. “You got the wrong house, hoss,” Waylon said, pointing at the paper. The DEA agent had no choice but to go and get another warrant, but he left another agent there to watch over the situation.             

    Ritchie cranked the playback loud while Waylon was arguing with his booking agent, stirring up some mayhem and creating enough of a diversion for Ritchie to go find the stash and flush it. I got the story straight from Richie recently, but in Waylon's version the DEA agent tried to follow Waylon into the restroom and was told: “No man's gonna watch me take a shit,” before he went in, locked the door, and flushed his pocket’s contents immediately. Then he walked out to face the agent who knew exactly what had happened but could do nothing about it. When the other agent returned with the new warrant, the studio was searched, and nothing was found. He got a kick out of telling the story one more time, and I was amazed to hear it.

    After a very healthy lunch of white bean soup and salad, following Waylon’s strict dietary restrictions due to diabetes, we both carried on about our love of Texas enchiladas before we got back into figuring out the song. I noticed a Fender headstock peeking from behind a chair and finally picked it up to check it out, impressed with the light weight and feel. It had a replacement brass tray and a bridge with individual brass saddles, not the three “barrel” bridges that were stock. This mod was popular with some players in the late seventies. He said he bought it new in ’56, and it had always been around, but he rarely played it anymore. His stage guitar was the famous black-and-white tooled, leather-bound Tele he's pictured with a lot. This Tele was blonde and had a white pickguard originally. He had changed it to a black guard at some point. I later came across a picture of him playing it at JD’s in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he had the house band before coming to Nashville. I plunked on it a little, just fooling around, and Waylon said: “Hey, Hoss, take that thing with you. It’s been behind that chair for quite a while. I think there’s something wrong with the switch. You oughta fix it up and play it some ‘cause nobody else is.” I was astonished and said: “You may not know that the Japanese collectors are paying a lot of money these days for ‘50s Fenders. You could probably get $7500 for it.” He immediately said: “You’re not gonna sell it to a damn Jap are you?”

    I was stunned. The rest of the day I kept looking over at the Tele in disbelief. We finished the song, and Waylon sang it into my Sony shoebox cassette recorder just one time. He said he loved it and would record it on his next record, no need for more of a demo. I packed up my acoustic and recorder, and as I got to the door Waylon said: “You’re not gonna leave without your new old guitar are you?” Fighting back a rush of joy, I weakly offered to get it fixed up and bring it back after playing it for a while. He smiled at my gesture, and because both my hands were full, he followed me to my car and handed it to me to lay in the back seat, apologizing that he had no idea where the case could be. I drove straight home and called James Pennebaker, who knows more about everything Fender than anyone. He came right over, popped the neck off, and saw the name Tadeo Gomez. Tadeo had worked at Fender in the fifties and has since become famous among collectors. As I played it the rest of the evening, it began to sink in how amazing it was to have this instrument. I realized I had to go back over the next day and have him sign it. On the back he signed: “Gary, Enjoy It, Waylon.”

    It was foolish of me to never make more of a demo than that cassette recording we made that day, still a treasure with Waylon’s soulful voice. We wrote a few more songs together and discussed getting in a studio sometime to record more, but his health continued to deteriorate, and he moved back to Arizona. I only spoke with him once after he moved. His foot had been amputated. I told him about my two uncles in east Texas who had each lost both their legs due to diabetes. Years went by before Ray Benson recorded our song “It Ain’t You” with Willie and made a beautiful video, with a lot of scenes of Willie and Ray in their younger days. That ’56 Tele remains my most treasured guitar.