From Father...: It's Good Ol' Waylon

Folks around here know that I am a fiend of all things country rock of the 70s, as well as the Alt Country movement of the 90s onwards that most recently was featured on the Americana disc I compiled. But of course I also like some of the genre forefathers, like rockabilly-turned-outlaw country star Waylon Jennings. Out of the famous Outlaw movement I have a clear favorite, and it's ol' Waylon. Willie is fine, has some very fine songs, but he also has a voice that can become a bit grating at times. Waylon's mighty, booming baritone, however? I'll take that all day every day. Well, maybe not quite as often, but you catch my drift. 

The One Buck record of the day is a live recording from 1984, recorded for the Silver Eagle radio program (though I added out the Silver Eagle commercial break announcements and such). It's a pretty good set list and a pretty good performance, especially considering that by 1984 Waylon was entering his purple phase as a performer. I am fond of Waylon's last album from his classic era I've Always Been Crazy, which my dad had on vinyl, together with Waylon & Willie from the same year, Willie's classic Red Headed Stranger and the Wanted! The Outlaws album from a couple of years earlier. For years my Outlaw country was a comp I made out of those albums, and I still have that and listen to it from time to time. 

The set list has a number of my favorites, not only classics like the Willie-and-Waylon warhorses "Good Hearted Woman" and "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys", but also Crazy's "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit Has Done Got Out Of Hand", a story-song about his run-ins with the law in the mid-to late 70s: "Someone called us outlaws in some old magazine / New York sent a posse down like I ain't never seen..."

And speaking of outlaws: It also has my very first brush with Waylon Jennings, the "Theme From The Dukes Of Hazzard", which was a show that I first saw years after it came out when the magic of private television brought us kids all the low-brow tv shows the state-owned channels wouldn't touch: The A-Team, Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard, among others. Other highlights here: the classics "I Ain't Living Long Like This" and "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way". The band is steadily ticking along behind ol' Waylon and gives these songs the raw, muscular sound that originally separated Waylon from the (Nashville) pack and started the whole Outlaw thing in the first place.

So, 15 fine tracks from the finest of the old school country outlaws...so, folks, are you ready for some country with the only daddy that'll walk the line..?