Waylon Jennings

Waylon Jennings (1937-2002) was a country singer and songwriter who had sixteen No. 1 country singles over the course of his long career.

In 1985, he appeared in Follow That Bird as a truck driver, who picked up the hitch-hiking Big Bird. The pair sang a duet, "Ain't No Road Too Long."

Country singer Chris Scruggs has recounted:^[1]

One time when I was a little kid and my mom was in the studio, I was sitting in the lounge just watching television, and this guy walked in, this kinda shaggy-lookin’ guy, and I was watching Sesame Street and he said “Hey, do you like Big Bird?” and I said “Yeah!” and he said, “You know in the Sesame Street movie I was an actor and I picked up Big Bird when he was hitch-hiking” and I went “Wow, that’s so incredible!” It wasn’t until I was, like, 20 that I realized that was Waylon Jennings. You don’t realize that they’re a different experience until you step outside Nashville or you talk to people who aren’t from here, or didn’t grow up around the music industry that you realize that you had an unusual and wonderful childhood.

When Jennings went on concert tour, Caroll Spinney was invited to travel with him on the tour bus, and Spinney would join him on stage with Oscar the Grouch. One time, for the benefit of the audience, Oscar asked Jennings, "What's the best thing about Garth Brooks? [beat] He's not here!"^[2]