OUTLAWS AND POETS
Exhibit explores unique characters that defined ’70s country music
NASHVILLE If the term “outlaw country” evokes images of Willie Nelson’s hippie braids or Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes, then you’ll want to see a new museum exhibit offering a deeper look at the poets, pickers and characters that revolutionized country music in the 1970s.
In the more than four decades since Nelson left Nashville in 1970, the term “outlaw” has become a profitable way of branding the scene that stretched from recording studios in Music City to hippies and rednecks in Austin, Texas.
But for the artists that experienced it first-hand, the movement was less about breaking laws and more about pushing back on traditional production techniques, wresting creative control from their labels and turning their focus to song craft.
“All of the main characters in the outlaw movement were poets, or if not, had the poet’s soul,” said Rodney Crowell, the Texas-born singersongwriter who came to Nashville in the ’70s.
The Outlaws and Armadillos: Country’s Roaring ’70s exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which runs through 2021, features never-before-seen photos and interviews with iconic musicians from the era, unique memorabilia, original artwork and concert posters, as well as special programs and speakers. Displays include Kris Kristofferson’s army uniform, Guy Clark’s Randall knife, Nelson’s sneakers, a stuffed armadillo and a copper still for making bootleg whiskey that was donated by Tom T. Hall.
Austin-based filmmaker Eric Geadelmann, a co-curator of the exhibit, put together videos for the exhibit’s eight screens featuring interviews with Kristofferson, Clark, Jessi Colter, Jerry Jeff Walker, Billy Joe Shaver and more.
The exhibit’s walls are lined with dozens of concert posters, many of them from illustrator Jim Franklin, who designed surrealistic artwork for concerts held at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin.
“Austin was grounded in red-dirt Texas music, but there was also psychedelia in the air,” said Peter Cooper, one of the museum’s curators.
The exhibit also emphasizes how radio station KOKE-FM and the longtime public television program Austin City Limits, both helped promote the progressive country sounds.
One iconic record of that period was a concept album dreamed up by Bobby Bare and Shel Silverstein, the Chicago-born poet, illustrator, author and songwriter. Bare was given carte blanche to come up with his own ideas in the studio and he wanted something different.
Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies, featured Silverstein’s characters, a vein of irreverent humour and a recorded laugh track. The reverberations from the album shook up Nashville.
“It was tremendous,” Bare said. At the same time, Jennings took the helm as a co-producer on his own albums, working with songwriters like Shaver to craft soulful, defiant country rock anthems that would come to define the outlaw image.
Crowell, the Grammy-winning singer songwriter who is also included in the exhibit, spent his early days in Nashville being mentored by songwriting giants such as Townes Van Zandt and Clark and his wife, Susanna.
He didn’t realize the impact those writers had on country music until
he went to Nelson’s Fourth of July picnic in 1974. About 25,000 people had gathered at the Texas World Speedway to see Nelson, Jennings, Van Zandt, Leon Russell, Walker and Kinky Friedman.
But the outlaw movement was short-lived. Wanted! The Outlaws featuring Nelson, Jennings, Colter and Tompall Glaser, became a platinum-selling album in 1976. A year later, Jennings was arrested for cocaine possession in a Nashville studio, but charges were later dropped. By 1978 the era had peaked and Jennings released his song Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand.