Waylon Wednesday

Waylon Wednesday! Here's a little behind-the-scenes story from my memoir "Playin' on the Tracks." It's about reuniting with Waylon Jennings & Jessi Colter after walking away for 10 years.
Sweet Forgiveness
"The concept for Waylon’s children’s album took time to put together, but in the fall of 1992 Barny and I found ourselves once again on a plane for Nashville. I wasn’t telling anyone, but I was scheduled for surgery the week of our return. Four ruptured discs in my lower back had me battling a serious case of chronic pain. The thrill of our restored friendship, however, was better than any meds I could have taken, and which I had turned down when my doctor insisted on writing the script. I kept thinking, “Doc, you don’t know my history.”
Friendship after friendship was renewed on that trip. We stayed with Waylon and Jessi, and Maureen welcomed us with open arms, like we were their favorite, long lost family members. Jigger played bass, good old Sonny Curtis was on guitar, Robby Turner wowed us on the pedal steel, and Jeff Hale played drums. It was one of the coolest reunions ever.
But I have to say the most poignant moment came while we were recording in 1111 Sound, previously known as American Studios. Over the years we had made more memories on that corner of the block than any book could contain, and now here we were, making new ones.
My back was killing me, and the sciatica in my leg was relentless. Everyone was in the control room, listening to a playback, and not wanting to draw attention to myself, I quietly slipped into the small room leading out into the studio. It was kind of like a little kitchen area, with a refrigerator, table, and chairs. I had sat at that very table so many times, waiting to be called up to record my vocals in the wee hours of the morning. Now, a decade later, I still couldn’t escape all those pictures floating just above my head, waiting for me to reach up and pull one down.
Waylon interrupted this impromptu reverie as he walked through the room and out into the studio; he was kind of looking back over his shoulder and smiling. I was sitting, staring at the door he had just walked through when it swung back open. He stood there looking at me, and I knew it was another one of those rare, almost holy moments that you don’t want to disturb.
After a while he found his words, and his voice had a slight, uncharacteristic quiver to it as he said, “Carter, I need to ask you to forgive me. I put you through a lot back then and gave you a pretty rough time. I’ve had a lot of years to think about it, and I want you to know that I was sorry from the moment you left. Drugs make a person do things they normally never would. It means everything to have you and Barny back with us again.”
Waylon didn’t like seeing people cry, but my vision was starting to blur, and I was biting the inside of my lip real hard so I wouldn’t give in to that very thing. I stood up and gave him the biggest hug I could, not even feeling the pain in my back. I told him we both had a lot to be forgiven for, and I was glad we were all together again. We smiled, then he went out and recorded “Cowboys, Sisters, Rascals and Dirt” —one of the all time best children’s albums—Waylon style!
Life never ceases to surprise me. If you had told me at that moment that within two years Barny and I would move our little family to Franklin, Tennessee and go back out on the road with Waylon and Jessi, I would have insisted that one of us was delusional. Yet in November 1994, that’s exactly what we did."