Willie, Waylon, and the Boys

"On February 2, 1959, Waylon Jennings, bassist for his best friend, rock star Buddy Holly, gave up his seat on a charter flight. Jennings joked that he hoped the plane would crash. When it did, killing all aboard, on 'the Day the Music Died,' he was devastated and never fully recovered. Jennings switched to playing country, creating the Outlaw movement and later forming the genre's first supergroup, the Highwaymen, with Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. The foursome battled addiction, record companies, ex-wives, violent fans, and the IRS and DEA, en route to unprecedented mainstream success. Today their acolytes Kacey Musgraves, Ryan Bingham, Sturgill Simpson, and Taylor Swift have helped make country the number one genre in America. In this fascinating, hilarious saga, Brian Fairbanks connects Buddy Holly, the anti-authoritarian stars of the '60s and '70s, and the current crop of up-and-coming Nashville rebels, bringing the reader deep into the worlds of not only Cash, Nelson, Kristofferson, and Jennings, but also artists like Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell--stadium-filling masters whose stories have not been told in book form--as well as new, diverse artists like the High-women, Brittany Spencer, and Allison Russell."