(slow country music) - Oh no, I met Waylon, actually, down at the first Fourth of July Picnic. It was the Dripping Springs picnic. Willie helped put it together, but somebody else had put it
together and Willie was on it, Tex Ritter, everybody you could think of was on it. A bunch of hippies and hillbillies. I was in a trailer and somebody passed a guitar to me. It was a little bitty, one of them real little trailers. And I started singing "Willy
the Wandering Gypsy and Me," and Waylon come bustin'
out of the back there, it was a little door, and he come out leanin' over of course, and he said, "Whose song is that?" And I said, "Well, it's mine." He said, "Well, I'll record that." And I said, "Well, good." And he learned it, sat there and wanted to hear it again, and he asked me if I had any more songs. I said, "Yeah." He said, "You got any more
of them cowboy songs?" I said, "Sure, got a
whole sack full of 'em." And I did, you know? But I had already been to Nashville, and I'd already signed with Bobby Bare. But Bobby Bare and
Waylon were good friends, so that made it kinda half alright. He went on back to Nashville, and I come up there back to Nashville. And Bobby, I lived in his office. Waylon kept dodging me. And I'd call over where his office supposed to be, and they'd say, "Oh,
he's on the other line," and he didn't have but one phone, I knew that, so. It was a bunch of bullshit, you know? And I found out he was recording at RCA, I guess it was. A great big studio where
Elvis usually recorded. And I decided, well, I'd go over there, and Captain Midnight, Roger Schutt, he's a DJ, a great DJ, one of the best, and he got me in there. And I come in the back door, and I'm just standin' back there mindin' my own business, 'cause I'm kinda waitin' on Waylon, I'm all jumpy, you know. And he got wind that I
was there, Waylon did, and Midnight comes back with a little bitty hundred dollar bill folded up in a square, you know, just real tight,
little hundred dollar bill. He said, "Waylon told
me to give this to you and for you to get outta here." (laughs) I said, "You know, will you take it back and tell him to shove it
up his ass and twist it." And he didn't do it. He decided finally he did, he went back up there and told Waylon and then Waylon, 'bout a few
minutes later, come bustin' out with his two bikers on each side of him. I mean, big ol' boys, you know? He said, "What do you want, hoss?" And I said, "Waylon, I'll
tell you what I want. If you don't listen to
the rest of these songs, at least listen to 'em, I'm gonna have to kick your ass right here in front of God and everybody." And he didn't like that worth a damn, and them guys started
swarming, he stopped 'em. Then he come, and you know how people that know they can get you
by the elbow, the funny bone? Well of course he got
me by that, I let him. And he steered me into a room, and I had my guitar with me 'cause I was goin' back to Texas, I had just about give up on him. And I was goin' back to Texas, and, dadgummit, he took me in there, and he says, "I'll tell you what, Billy," he said, 'Willy the
Wandering Gypsy and Me,' I'll do that, but I'm
not gonna do anything unless I get to hear one that's real good. If I hear one that's real good, you can play another. But if not, you're gonna hit that door and you're gonna leave and
you're not ever gonna come back, and I ain't gonna see ya again." I said, "Well, that's fair enough." And I went ahead and did
"Ain't No God in Mexico," or "Black Rose," or something like that, I think was pretty hot. And I got to do that and another one, and another one, and another one, and finally ... when I got finally to "Honky Tonk Heroes," he (slaps knee)
slapped his knee like that and he said, "Eh, dammit,
that's what I gotta do it." And he said, "Well, okay, you're in." And he brought his own band in, and I guess run them other guys off, I don't know what happened to 'em, but ... ... his own band came in, and it's the first time
anybody'd done that, and they recorded them songs. There was a time or two
I got mad at him, boy, I stayed mad at him all
during the whole thing. (laughs)
'Cause I couldn't even, I was so blessed to have
him do it, you know, and all the other
songwriters were mad at me, they said I hadn't paid my dues. Here I am all crippled up and everything. But he did that and I had to go in there
and overdub things, and I tried my best to get him to sing 'em kind of the way that I did, but he was a better singer
than me, in other words, so it worked out good with him doing that, 'cause I couldn't have
got very far with it, 'cause I didn't have the name, and I didn't have, you know, I couldn't sing as good as he could. (slow country music)
