Waylon & Willie - The Outlaws Ride...

Not only are the days of summer slowly coming to an end, but also the days of summer holidays for the kids. Which is not a totally bad thing, because for now they are eating away at the adults' time, rarely being in bed before 10.30. Which means there's no time left for the adults to really invest in putting on a movie, or what not, so these days often we just hang out in front of the news or some easy going, not terribly long show. So testerday I stumbled on this documentary on Robert De Niro, which - while having nothing particularly new to teach me - reminded me of what a spectacular run De Niro had in the 70s and early 80s. THen the documentary was followed by one on Dolly Parton, someone I'm a lot less familiar with. Really interesting stuff, and even the wife was happy to have seen it and to have learned a ton about Parton. Great lady with a ton of humor. And by now it was definitely time to hit the bed, but that Parton documentary then segued into...a 1990 concert of the Highwaymen. Which means by this very long intro I will finally segue into the record of the day, which as you can see above is *not* the Highwaymen, but the two outlaw members of the group...

The Highwaymen period isn't seen by anyone as a highlight of the career of the four men involved. As a matter of fact, the group ws put together when the career of these wily country veterans had all begun to slow down considerably, so they wisely through themselves together. The adventure smacked a bit of n oldies package tour, and the concert we saw yesterday didn't entirely dispell that notion, but man, getting to see four legends (well, three and a half, with no disrespect to Kristoffer Kristian Ktistofferson) in one fell swoop retrospectively looks like a pretty great deal. In concert, these guys didn't bother too much with songs from the record they di in 1985 or the brand new record they were promoting in 1990, but rather ran through the greatest hits of each men. A toe-tappin' good ol' time was had by all - including OBG and his wife - which means we really, really went to bed later than we should. 

So here I was anyway, contemplating what to post next on this here lil' blog that could, and so the outlaws pushed themselves all the way to the front of the line. What I have here for you is one of the very first homebrewed compilations I ever did, about fourteen years ago. I had borrowed four vinyls from my dad - the Waylon & Willie album that lends its cover artwork, the Wanted: The Outlaws compilation from 1976, Willie's Red Headed Stranger and Waylon's I've Always Been Crazy - transferred them from vinyl to digital and compiled my favorites from these four albums involving Waylon & Willie. Seven of the generous 29 track selections are duets by Willie & Waylon, the rest alternates between both of them trading songs. 

There are of course their two famous duets, "Good-Herated Woman" and "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys", plus a couple of lesser-known duet tunes like "Don't Cuss The Fiddle" (with its "Good Hearted Woman" reprise). Waylon's songs include highlights like the hilarious recounting of a New York Police drug bust in "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out Of Hand?", "A Long Time Ago" and "Girl I Can Tell", while Willie favorites other than the story-songs from Red Headed Stranger include "A Couple More Years" and "If You Can Touch Her At All", plus his classic "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain".  

So, what's more to say? A ton of classic songs from the heydays of the outlaw movement and two of its best representatives. I have been grooving to this album, whenever I get the need for some honky tonkin', wheelin' and dealin', shufflin' and hufflin' outlaw country, for fourteen years, so maybe ut's time you get to do that, too...