Valley Fever Celebrates Waylon Jennings’ Birth  You can count
the number of Valley residents who have made a major splash in
country music on one hand, even if that hand has lost a finger
in a farm equipment mishap. There's Glendale's Marty Robbins, he
of the famous gunfighter ballads, the awesome 'stache, and the
part-time gig as a middling NASCAR driver. Then we have Phoenix
native Miriam Johnson, better known as Jessi Colter, the only
woman in the '70s outlaw country boys club of Waylon, Willie,
and Tompall Glaser, and the woman who tamed Waylon's wild ways,
married him, and bore him a son, country/rock singer Shooter
Jennings. There's Phoenix native Dierks Bentley, whose rockin'
country stands out like a rhinestone Stetson among Nashville's
current crop of bland pop-country crooners.  Finally, we have
Waylon Jennings, the Texas-born baritone who moved west after a
gig as Buddy Holly's bass player literally flamed out in a snowy
Iowa cornfield in 1959, lived in an apartment near 36th Street
and Thomas Road