‘Luckenbach, Texas’ at 40: How Waylon Jennings Created an Outlaw Fantasy
Subtitled “Back to the Basics of Love,” Jennings’ 1977 crossover hit pined for a simpler way of life that may have never existed
By Jeff Gage
There isn’t much to see in the town of Luckenbach, Texas. It’s barely even a town. A sleepy, unincorporated settlement about an hour outside Austin, Luckenbach — with its lone mailbox — boasts a population of three people. Yet 40 years ago, it achieved immortality with “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love),” a song that became one of the biggest hits for the Outlaw country movement and a defining statement for Waylon Jennings.
Released on April 11th, 1977, “Luckenbach, Texas” was Jennings’ first crossover hit as a solo artist, rising to Number 25 on the Billboard 200 chart. But the song, written by Chips Moman and Bobby Emmons, was much more than that: It was Outlaw country’s greatest myth-making moment, ensuring that “Waylon and Willie and the boys” entered the mainstream lexicon as shorthand for a simple way of life, one that country music has pined for ever since.
“Waylon and Willie [Nelson] were keeping alive this freeform, hippie type of ideal. That’s why so many people were attracted to them,” says Michael…
