Waylon Jennings' son Shooter on rescuing his dad's music

Come on in. Welcome to Snake Mountain, A.K.A. Sunset Sound Studio 3. So this is your office. This is my clubhouse. I don't know how many records I've made in here. It has to have been 40. 40 records. Probably, yeah. (SINGING) They said outlaw you

Shooter Jennings is a singer, songwriter, and the producer of Grammy award-winning albums for Brandi Carlile and Tanya Tucker. You can feel, there's ghosts in here. There's spirits, at the very least. (SINGING) We got real love

Dolly Parton recorded here at Sunset Sound in Hollywood. (SINGING) I do

So did Fleetwood Mac-- (SINGING) Purple rain, purple rain

--and Prince. Supposedly, Prince had a bed-- Yes, in here. --in this room during "Purple Rain." He had a bed in here, and he-- You sleep in here, too? No. No. I got kids. I gotta go to bed.

Shooter is now using this space to produce a project deeply personal and emotional. I appreciate you having this conversation, because I can tell-- Oh, yeah, I'll get teared up. Well, it's your father. I mean, I wear my emotions on my face all the time, anyway. So for everybody out there, I'm a crier.

Raw emotions from the son of a man known for them, Waylon Jennings. (SINGING) Don't fool around with any old Ramblin' Man

With his black hat, beard, and baritone voice, he defined the rebel, gritty spirit of the country music outlaw movement. (SINGING) Been traveling these highways I've been doing things my way

Jennings blended honky tonk, folk, and Southern rock to create a revolutionary sound. (SINGING) Where do it go? The good Lord only knows

He had 16 number one hits, including "I'm a Ramblin' Man,"-- (SINGING) Lord, I'm a Ramblin' Man Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys. --"Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys" with Willie Nelson-- (SINGING) Just a good old boy

--and the theme song for TV's The Dukes of Hazzard. I mean, your dad, he's an icon. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

But Dukes of Hazzard,that was, for so many people, their introduction to him. [WAYLON JENNINGS PLAYING]

Shooter is keeping his father's legacy alive by producing long lost material, which he found stashed away. I'm proud of him, and I'm proud of the work that I'm doing, and I'm proud of the legacy he's left behind because he just was a good guy. [WAYLON JENNINGS PLAYING]

So far, there are two albums, Songbird and the forthcoming Diamonds. (SINGING) I feel that when I'm with you, it's all right It's like-- it's like he's saying something, and that was what was so weird about it. It felt like he was having a conversation with a listener in that. Talking to you, too. Yeah, for sure. I mean, talking to anyone that knows and loves his voice, you know. (SINGING) To you It's like emotional, beautiful material about love and life. And that's what he connected with, was the music and the lyrics and the dream.

That dream began in a small town in the Lone Star State. How did Texas shape him? Texas played a big role in it because he wanted to get out of there so bad. He grew up in this little town that's just right between Lubbock and New Mexico. And it's like, flat in every way. Like he says in his book, if your dog ran away, you could watch him go for three days.

While working as a teenage DJ, Jennings met fellow Texan Buddy Holly. To your father, he was a friend. Yeah. Yeah, he was his best friend. And my dad always told me. He said not a day went by that he didn't think about Buddy. Not a day. Buddy Holly encouraged Jennings to become a musician. They toured together and were playing the same show on a fateful night in Iowa in 1959.

And the last conversation that had was like, I hope your bus breaks down and you freeze to death. And he says, I hope your plane crashes. Did he live with the pain from Buddy Holly's death? It did. It did haunt him. (SINGING) When you fall in love

But Waylon carried on and started a band and eventually moved to Nashville, where he became a star and a symbol of a new kind of sound. What is Outlaw Music? Is it just wearing a leather jacket and a dark cowboy hat and sunglasses, is it being anti-Nashville, or is there something deeper to the whole idea? No, it was a marketing tool. They came up with it in Nashville. It was like a way to package Waylon and Willie. And they kind of called it the Outlaw Movement. (SINGING) I'm tired of looking lonesome, on'ry and mean

How did your dad change music?

He got his creative freedom and artistic integrity and control, which is what he wanted. And that kind of freed everybody else. Independence for artists. Independence for artists. (SINGING) We are the world

He was uncompromising and controversial. He walked out during the "We Are The World" recording session.

He goes, this isn't about the kids. That's the first thing he thought. He thought this is about the look of this.

Shooter says his father thought too much attention was on photo ops, not fundraising.

And then he said, so by the time it got to be 4:00 in the morning, and they were like, let's do it in Swahili, he was like, I'm out of here. I've been here all day. This has been too long. And they're going to keep going, and make them try to learn a language or something. And I think, he was already like, I can't speak any other languages. And later, I was on the bus with him, and Paul Simon walked in. And he goes-- he said, Waylon. He goes, Every one of us wanted to walk out of that thing, and you were the only one that had the [BLEEP] to do it.

Waylon acknowledged, he long struggled with a drug habit, but he quit cold turkey in 1984. He said the catalyst was his young son. Your father was candid about his struggles with drugs.

Yeah. He sometimes would spend over $1,000 a day. Yeah, yeah. Did he ever talk to you about his journey? He did, of course. But it bothered him so much. It didn't affect me one bit. Like, when I was a kid, he quit by the time I was like, five or six. And I think once he won the battle, it was when he realized he didn't need it anymore. And he was a great dad.

Waylon Jennings died in 2002, at 64. You miss him? Yeah. Well, I do miss him. Of course, I miss him. But that's not why I cry. I get emotional just because I feel how important this all is. [WAYLON JENNINGS, "DIAMONDS"] Give up my drinking Fighting in bars

What keeps you going?

I want everybody to know the guy I know. And I think I'm in a place where I'm in the studio, and I'm able to put this out there, and people will get it and hear it. So I feel like that should be my purpose, in a way. (SINGING) I have looked for ya high Looked for ya low Oh, my lady