‘Guitar pickers’ became ‘cowboys’ for hit Willie and Waylon duet
This week in 1978: Footprints that appeared to be those of a human being who lived 3.5 million years before were found at the bottom of an African watering hole; All but $100 of a $100,000 ransom paid by designer Calvin Klein was recovered. The ransom was paid for the return of Klein’s 11-year-old daughter, who was held for 10 hours and released unharmed; and a pair of Texas singers were enjoying a hit record on a tune that was written as a protest song.
According to Ed Bruce, the line “mama’s don’t let your babies grow up to be guitar pickers” came to him as he was driving down the highway.
He commented, “At the time I was pretty well-known as a songwriter and I was performing but I just was not where I wanted to be – I still had not done that special something – and all at once that line just popped into my mind from out of nowhere. I guess I wrote it as a protest song of sorts and in the meantime I changed “guitar pickers” to “cowboys” and I begin to think I had the makings of a song.”
According to Bruce, he thought of pitching the song to Waylon Jennings but then decided to keep it for himself. But he changed his mind again and called Waylon one afternoon in September 1977 to pitch the song to him and was shocked when Waylon said he had recorded the song a couple of weeks earlier. But according to Jennings, he had recorded it as a solo but wasn’t satisfied with it.
And during a conversation with Willie Nelson, he mentioned a song he had recorded but it might make a good duet song for the two of them.
So Willie and Waylon went into the studio, engineers erased part of Waylon’s recording and Willie’s part was added and a duet recording was born.
Willie and Waylon’s RCA Victor single “Mama’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys” came on the country music charts January 21st. 1978, made it to No. 1 and stayed there for four weeks. The single was also awarded a Grammy for Country Vocal Duo.
The record also placed in the top 40 pop charts.
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