A protégé of Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings played bass in Holly’s post-Crickets band and almost took that fateful plane ride - he cheated death by giving his seat to The Big Bopper.

After Holly’s passing, Jennings moved to Nashville, where his imposing baritone and stripped-down, gritty honky-tonk guitar approach gave birth to the ’outlaw country’ movement.

Jennings’s renegade image was cemented in the early ‘70s when he recorded material by the then-unknown Kris Kristofferson. Later that decade, he collaborated with Willie Nelson on a number of songs, including the chart-topping Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys.

In the mid-‘80s, Jennings, Kristofferson, Nelson and fellow country bad boy Johnny Cash formed The Highwaymen. The fearsome foursome had a No. 1 hit with a tune called - what else? - Highwayman.

Always a man of fashion, Jennings’ Teles, particularly his ‘53 model, were adorned with decorative leather ‘saddle’ covers. His instruments remained stock until the ‘80s when he experimented with EMG pickups. Waylon Jennings died on 13 February 2002.