Waylon Jennings Sang “No Women No Wine“ For Me In 1975 To Honor Oilmen

He said yes to my request because it honored the oil drillers, the roustabouts, oilmen, people he knew growing up in Texas. The time was 1975. I got the assignment from Mobil Oil to film oil exploration. Our goal was to create three-minute infomercials that showed Americans how hard it was to get oil now that the Texas oil fields were running low. My crew traveled to northern Alaska, to Sumatra & Banda Aceh, to the Iran-Iraq border & to the North Sea to be right where oilmen were drilling. I had the idea to also create a 10 minute movie with an original country song & asked Waylon if he would sing it. His dad worked in the Texas oil fields. He immediately said yes. The words for the song came from phrases that I had heard while filming. It was Waylon Jennings’s humble upbringing in Littlefield Texas & his Dad’s experiences that influenced much of his music. He often sang about the working-class struggles. He began his music career at the age of 12 as a disc jockey for a local radio station. When he was 21, he met Buddy Holly. Holly hired him to play bass and Jennings was supposed to be on the ill-fated flight that crashed and killed Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. “The Big Bopper“ Richardson in 1959. Jennings gave up his seat to Richardson, a decision that haunted him for years. After Holly’s death, Jennings performed in clubs and started a radio show in Phoenix, Arizona. His music career took off in the early 1960s after moving to Nashville. He experienced his first significant success with the 1966 hit, “Stop the World (And Let Me Off).“ Some of his most famous songs include “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys“ (a duet with Willie Nelson), “Good Hearted Woman,“ “I’m a Ramblin’ Man,“ “Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love),“ and the theme song for the TV show “The Dukes of Hazzard,“ titled “Good Ol’ Boys.“ Jennings struggled with health issues and drug addiction and quit cocaine in the 1980s. He died in 2002 at the age of 64. Working on oil rigs in remote locations like Alaska and Sumatra in 1975 was physically demanding due to the environments’ harsh conditions. However, it had the potential to be financially rewarding. Workers worked long shifts, often 12 hours per day. In Alaska, workers had to contend with extremely cold temperatures, high winds and long periods of darkness in the winter. In Sumatra, the challenges included high heat, humidity, and difficult terrain. After the oil crisis of 1973 where the price of oil quadrupled due to the OPEC oil embargo, oil companies invested heavily in new technologies to increase oil exploration and production. Seismic imaging technology helped to locate potential oil and gas reserves with greater precision. Oil companies also expanded their search for oil which often meant drilling in more challenging environments, like deep-sea drilling. My film presents some of these locations. In 1975, North Sea discoveries had become a major source of crude oil and natural gas. Oil companies used offshore drilling platforms that were fixed to the seabed with anchors housed dozens of workers. Supply vessels were used to transport supplies and personnel to the offshore platforms. The North Sea turned out to be one of the world’s largest offshore oil and gas fields. The Iran Iraq border is a mountainous region with one of the world’s largest oil reserves. Six months after I was there, both countries nationalized their oil industries. The 1970s were also a period of tension between Iran and Iraq culminating in the Iran-Iraq war that began in 1980. This conflict severely impacted the oil industry in both countries. The drilling for oil in northern Alaska posed significant challenges. To protect oil companies utilized equipment designed to withstand the harsh Arctic conditions. For example drilling rigs were winterized to keep them operational in extremely low temperatures. Also while I was there, to protect against freezing, I remember every engine for every vehicle running 24 hours a day. In Banda Aceh Sumatra natural gas had be discovered just months before I was there and became one of the largest natural gas fields ever found. The primary recipient of the that gas was Japan. As Japan lacked significant domestic fossil fuel resources and faced growing energy demand, it became the leading global importer. In the context of growing environmental concerns around coal and oil use, natural gas was seen as a relatively cleaner and more secure source of energy. I would like to thank the companies who place their advertisements on my video. They include Cog oil and gas. Oil and gas fleet management. Oil field management. Civitas oil and gas. HSE oil and gas. Weir oil and gas. Oil and gas litigation. BVK oil and gas. Oil drilling rigs. Oil drilling platforms. LNG price. Micro sectors oil and gas exploration. Oil drilling history. Sumatra gas. North Sea oil. Prudhoe Bay. Mobil. David Hoffman Filmmaker