Phoenix rises 'Out of the Ashes' in Carefree
Jessi Colter, wife of music legend Waylon Jennings, takes the stage with son Shooter Jennings
by Jennifer Krahe

CAREFREE – The mythological phoenix is said to rise out of its own ashes only to be reborn again and again into eternity. Songstress Jessi Colter, a woman with her own stories of rebirth, is that phoenix of myth. But the numerous risings she has experienced throughout her life are beautifully, desperately real. 

Colter, who was raised in the Valley, will take the stage at the Opera House on the grounds of Carefree Resort & Villas on July 1 along with her son Shooter Jennings. She will be performing songs from her latest, aptly titled album, “Out of the Ashes.”

Daughter

Born Mirriam Johnson, Colter spent the early years of her life with her mother, a Pentecostal minister, at revival meetings. “We evangelized in the summers,” she remembers. “I played the accordion and the piano.” Colter learned much from her mother, a woman she calls “a true missionary, well‑built for the calling–an eloquent, tactful, passionate woman.”

Her mother’s values became Colter’s own not because they were forced upon her, but simply because of the undeniable integrity her mother radiated. An interesting way to spend one’s young years, perhaps uplifting the spirits of the faithful gave Colter what would become an essential skill throughout her colorful, almost mythical, life: the ability to rise and be reborn like the phoenix, and to carry those who came in contact with her along for the ride.

Outlaw

It had been in her all the time, but didn’t manifest itself until she was parting ways with her first husband, Duane Eddy, the “twangy” electric rock guitar pioneer of the ’50s and ’60s. Days away from her divorce, Colter was seeking a new beginning without even realizing it. “It’s really strange,” she muses. “Sometimes to understand the decisions you make, you have to go back to the time you made them in order to figure out why.”

“My name was Mirriam Johnson then,” says Colter, who changed her name to suit her new persona. “It was Chet Atkins’ fault. He asked me if there was a family name I might want to take.”

Colter’s father used to tell her stories about Jesse Colter, her great‑great‑granduncle, who is purported to have been the chief counterfeiter for the Jesse James Gang.

“I loved the sound of the name,” she says, wistfully, “and I love the whole idea of the West.”

According to Colter, her father told her he didn’t like her taking a man’s name, but she admits that “maybe he was embarrassed about the history of it.” Little did he know how well that name would suit her–and that it would become much more widely known.

Now with a name to accompany the essence of otherness, of minority and outlaw that had been coursing through her as she grew, Colter began a new life.  And she found others like herself.

Rebel

Channeling her great‑great‑granduncle, Colter was surrounded by rebellious spirits. She married Waylon Jennings, the catalyst of the anti‑Nashville, anti‑southern establishment movement who fought for freedom to express his musical creativity.  Colter was drawn into a visceral group of impassioned warriors going against the grain, just as she had been called to do even as a young woman.

“They were true artists,” she says of her husband and his talented friends. “And they were men. They were strong‑minded men.” Jennings, Willie Nelson, and others were in Nashville at a time of great upheaval–a battle between the Old South and a creative revolution. Many musicians were driven away.