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On This Day in 1979, Waylon Jennings Topped the Charts With an Album Featuring an Autobiographical Classic and a Tribute to His Friend Buddy Holly
Waylon Jennings’s *I’ve Always Been Crazy* reached No. 1 on the US country albums chart in November 1979 and remained there for eight weeks. The success mattered as another high point in Jennings’s career, while songs on the album reflected the pressures and personal struggles behind his public image as an outlaw country star.
Released in July 1978, the album included “Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand”, inspired by a 1977 drug investigation, and a six-minute medley honouring Jennings’s friend Buddy Holly. Jennings had played bass in Holly’s band and was due to join him on the 1959 tour before the plane crash that killed Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. Kenny Rogers’s *Kenny* ended the album’s chart run in the first week of 1980.
In short
- Jennings’s album topped the country chart for eight weeks.
- Its songs reflected personal struggles and outlaw country’s changing image.
- A medley paid tribute to his late friend Buddy Holly.