re: Who was the most popular outlaw country singer at the height of its popularity?

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After moving to Nashville with her two young sons, Smith became the publicist for irreverent singer-songwriter Kinky Friedman.

In the early 1970s, while working as a publicist at the Glaser Brothers' "Hillbilly Central" office/studio on 19th Avenue S., she began using the term "outlaw music" to describe the songs of country renegades like Tompall Glaser, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.

"Now, it doesn’t say this in mine or any other dictionary I’ve seen, but it said that outlaw meant virtually living on the outside of the written law," Smith told The Nashville Scene in 1997. "It just made sense to me, because Owen Bradley and Chet Atkins were doing marvelous music, but this was another step in another direction."

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