Outlaw - by Michael Streissguth (Paperback)

About the Book

Outlaw by acclaimed author Michael Streissguth follows the stories of three legends as they redefined country music: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.

Streissguth delves into the country music scene in the late '60s and early '70s, when these rebels found themselves in Music City writing songs and vying for record deals. Channeling the unrest of the times, all three Country Music Hall of Famers resisted the music industry s unwritten rules and emerged as leaders of the outlaw movement that ultimately changed the recording industry.

Outlaw offers a broad portrait of the outlaw movement in Nashville that includes a diverse secondary cast of characters, such as Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell, Kinky Friedman, and Billy Joe Shaver, among others.

With archival photographs throughout, Outlaw is a comprehensive examination of a fascinating shift in country music, and the three unbelievably talented musicians who forged the way."

Book Synopsis

Outlaw by acclaimed author Michael Streissguth follows the stories of three legends as they redefined country music: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.

Streissguth delves into the country music scene in the late '60s and early '70s, when these rebels found themselves in Music City writing songs and vying for record deals. Channeling the unrest of the times, all three Country Music Hall of Famers resisted the music industry's unwritten rules and emerged as leaders of the outlaw movement that ultimately changed the recording industry.

Outlaw offers a broad portrait of the outlaw movement in Nashville that includes a diverse secondary cast of characters, such as Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell, Kinky Friedman, and Billy Joe Shaver, among others.

With archival photographs throughout, Outlaw is a comprehensive examination of a fascinating shift in country music, and the three unbelievably talented musicians who forged the way.

From the Back Cover

The definitive story of how three country music legends--Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson--changed music in Nashville

By the late 1960s, young people from all over the country were streaming into Nashville, Tennessee. The city was the center of the booming country music industry and home to what was known as the Nashville Sound, characterized by slick production and an increasingly overused formula.

But three trailblazing artists would soon rock the foundations of Nashville's music business. Tapping into the burgeoning underground scene and the traditions of civil rights leaders and antiwar protestors, Waylon, Willie, and Kris resisted Nashville's music-making machine and forged their own paths, creating music that was more personal, not easily categorized, and in the vein of rock acts of the time.

Drawing on extensive research and probing interviews with Kris Kristofferson, Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, Cowboy Jack Clement, and others, Michael Streissguth brings to life an incredible chapter in musical history and reveals for the first time a surprising outlaw zeitgeist in Nashville. Outlaw is a fascinating glimpse into three of the most legendary artists of our times.

Review Quotes

Offers a look at the how the 'outlaw' music of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson shook up Nashville in the late '60s and '70s. . . . Author Streissguth has country music bona fides: He also wrote Johnny Cash: The Biography. - USA Today

A riveting look at how how three Texans joined forces to liberate Nashville from its company-town ways in the 1970s. It is a small group portrait, tightly focused and well told by Michael Streissguth. - Wall Street Journal

In this compulsively readable book, music historian Streissguth describes the contrast between the staid Nashville music scene of the late '60s and early '70s, and the dynamic new music filtering into the city from Los Angeles (Emmylou Harris), Texas (Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, Waylon Jennings), and South Carolina (Marshall Chapman). - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Compulsively readable..." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Streissguth goes widescreen with this look at the social and musical ferment that produced the Seventies outlaw-country movement... [he] skillfully portrays Sixties Nashville's studio politics and their gradual loosening up, alongside a city where post-Sixties social change took its time arriving. - Rolling Stone

"A unique and significant book... paints a poignant picture of Nashville's Music Row in the 60s and 70s when it was inhabited by songwriters, strange characters, heroes (sung and unsung), and talented, troubled deathbound passengers of life full of words and music which taken together sometimes make dreams." - Kinky Friedman

"A biting, in-depth chronicle of Nashville's most tumultuous era told through the voices of iconic artists who used their music to accomplish significant changes in the music industry." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Think what you want about Nashville. Back in the 1960s, a seismic shift was taking place, beyond the purview of the Music Row mainstream, led by three singer-songwriters who didn't quite fit in. Michael Streissguth lifts up the rug and shows how the outsiders became the ultimate insiders, and saved country music from itself." - Joe Nick Patoski, author of Willie Nelson: An Epic Life and The Dallas Cowboys: The Outrageous History of the Biggest, Loudest, Most Hated, Best Loved Football Team in America

"The outlaw scene was a cultural upheaval in a company town, spurred largely by outsiders--in its way, not unlike punk. Full of period color and surprising details (who knew "Me & Bobby McGee" was inspired by Fellini's La Strada?), Streissguth tells a vivid, timely history that, in the best country music, continues to repeat itself." - Will Hermes, author of Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York City That Changed Music Forever

Riveting - Wall Street Journal

The author of two Johnny Cash books, Michael Streissguth goes widescreen with this look at the social and musical ferment that produced the Seventies outlaw-country movement--a transformational break from the past that brought the post-hippie singer-songwriter ethos to superstraight Music Row. He skillfully portrays Sixties Nashville's studio politics and their gradual loosening up, alongside a city where post-Sixties social change took its time arriving. Streissguth shores his story up by cramming it with loving details--like when he lets on that Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" was inspired by Fellini's La Strada. - Rolling Stone

Outlaw is an entertaining, authoritative account of Nashville's rebel years. - popmatters.com

"Streissguth makes a compelling, intelligent, and elegant case for an outlaw zeitgeist, and he draws the main characters--Willie, Waylon, Kris and 'the boys' (and a few girls)--with depth and truth. If God is in the Details, Art is in the Specifics, and Streissguth has created a beautiful document of the uniquely specific." - -Rosanne Cash