Oh, And He Also Walked Out Of The CMA Awards
Jennings didn’t reserve his protests for talk shows. In fact, 28 years before he walked out on Snyder, Jennings walked out of the CMA Awards for a similar reason.
As Jennings wrote in his autobiography, he was a scheduled performer at the 1970 CMA Awards, and was going to sing “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line.” But the show organizers were running short on time, and asked Jennings if he could cut his song to just a verse and a chorus.
Jennings responded in the way you’d expect him to:
“I said, ‘Why don’t I just dance across the stage and grin? Maybe do one line. That’ll give you a lot of time.’ They told me to not get smart. Either I did it or I got out.”
When the CMA folks told Jennings they didn’t need him to move on with the show, he decided to leave. Lesson learned, it was Jennings’ way or the highway.
