Phoenix musician August Manley brings Waylon Jennings to life
August Manley is a good ol’ boy singing Waylon Jennings’ hits at The Dirty Drummer this weekend.
It was all thanks to a couple of television cousins running moonshine through the state of Georgia in an orange ’69 Dodge Charger that local country artist August Manley became interested in Waylon Jennings, the music legend with deep ties to Arizona.
Jennings sang the theme song to the aforementioned TV show, “The Dukes of Hazzard,” which begins with those now-famous three guitar chords before leading into the lyrics, “Just a good ol’ boys, never meanin’ no harm…”
It might be considered a problematic series now, but back then, kids waited in front of their television sets every Friday night to hear those first lines. It meant car chases, explosions and the muscle car General Lee was soon to follow. It was that kind of outlaw aesthetic Jennings would become famous for.
It was all thanks to a couple of television cousins running moonshine through the state of Georgia in an orange ’69 Dodge Charger that local country artist August Manley became interested in Waylon Jennings, the music legend with deep ties to Arizona.
Manley found inspiration in that song, and today, he fronts a popular Waylon Jennings tribute act. The band will perform on Saturday night at The Dirty Drummer.
But how does a man raised in the Pacific Northwest become the emulator of one of the greatest country singers of all time?
“I was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington, but I was about as far southeast as you could go and was raised on my grandfather’s farm,” says Manley with the slightest twang. “So I went and picked eggs before school and all that kind of crap. We had a shit-ton of corn and some cattle and a bunch of things. It was truly not what people expect when I say Tacoma, Washington, you know.”
His parents bought him a classical guitar and guitar lessons before promising him an electric one.
“I wanted to be Eddie Van Halen and all that kind of stuff, you know,” Manley recalls. He got the guitar as promised and began studying all kinds of music.
