Waylon Rules!

I loves me some Waylon Jennings.

When I was about 13 years old my dad bought a brand new, brown Chevy four-wheel drive pickup that came complete with a cassette player. Cassette decks didn’t come standard in vehicles in 1983 (at least not in Chevy pickups) and, as I recall, I was instrumental in convincing Dad to have the cassette player added.

In order to have something to play in it, he bought a cassette of the Waylon album “It’s Only Rock And Roll.” I don’t know why he picked that particular record. I don’t remember him particularly being a music fan, though my parents did have a bunch of LPs and I remember some Johnny Cash 8-tracks getting some play at our house. I had a few LPs and some cassettes, but they were mostly top-40 type stuff. I have fond memories of owning the J. Geils Band’s “Freeze Frame.” My favorite song was “Piss on the Wall”, for obvious reasons. I also had the Kool and the Gang cassette with “Celebration” on it.

“It’s Only Rock and Roll” had a medley of Waylon hits on side 2 and I got hooked. Soon I found the 1978 “Greatest Hits” cassette at the Audio Center, which billed itself as Texarkana’s Sound King. It’s still in business. I wore that sucker out on my Panasonic cassette player/recorder and in the truck cassette deck on our seemingly daily trips to cut firewood.

Soon, I wanted to hear the albums that spawned songs such as “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” and “I’ve Always Been Crazy.” But, alas, I was to spend a decade wandering the desert because those albums were all out of print. Unfortunately, I discovered Waylon during a major fallow period in his career. I had to satisfy myself with his new music, albums like “Will The Wolf Survive,” “Turn The Page” and “Hanging Tough.” The quality of the albums I could actually buy, put together, didn’t add up to a single song off the “Greatest Hits” package.

Other music helped fill the void, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams Jr., David Allan Coe, the soundtrack from “Urban Cowboy,” and, a little later, the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Buffett.

A serious breakthrough came when I discovered in about 1987 that my Uncle Dale had a few of those seminal 70’s Waylon albums on vinyl and 8-track. I dubbed those off onto blank Maxell tapes. You can imagine the quality of those recordings. Major skips and tape hiss. Nevertheless, I wore those out on the truck’s cassette deck. By then I had a driver’s license, which meant complete control over the music selections.

Finally, when I was in college in about 1991 I discovered in the back of Country Music magazine these classified ads where people were selling old LPs in mint condition. (How did we ever survive before the Internets.) In a buying frenzy that lasted several months because I could only afford one album every few paychecks, I acquired all the classic Waylon albums, from 1973’s “Lonesome, Onr’y and Mean” through 1980’s “Music Man.” They cost between $15 and $50 each. And I wasn’t disappointed. That’s when I discovered that an artist’s greatest hits often aren’t their best songs. I transferred all of them onto cassettes and wore those out on the tape player in the truck, which had been handed down to me by then. I had gotten so used to the bad copies I had made of my uncle’s recordings that the skips and pops and hiccups and tape hiss had become part of the songs. It was jarring when I started hearing the pristine versions.

I finally saw the man play live in 1996 in Little Rock’s Barton Coliseum. For some reason, seeing a Waylon concert had never been a priority for me. I also never lusted after his autograph or memorabilia like belt buckles and concert posters. I just liked the music. In 1996, he was well past his prime and just going through motions it seemed to me. He complained about the crappy acoustics in the building. The event was mostly forgettable except for his rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee.” I was walking in front of the stage on my way back from the beer stand when the song kicked off. I stood in front of the big speakers as Kris Kristofferson’s timeless ode to hitch hiking and a woman leaving you to chase her restless muse washed over me. It ended with an extended instrumental coda. It was cool. I still have my concert T-shirt with “Waylon F*@#in’ Jennings — that’s who.” emblazoned on the back. (My god, you can find anything on the Internets.)

Now, back to the present. Back in October, a new Waylon album was released, “Waylon Forever.” That is notable because Waylon died in 2002. It’s billed as the man’s final recordings, but they aren’t. He continued to release albums right up to his death. Some were great, like 1996’s “Right For The Time,” and some were pretty bad, like 1998’s “Closing In On The Fire.” It’s a shame he was never able in his later years to redefine himself and make some great modern music. Johnny Cash in his last years released his American Recordings albums, which is possibly his best work. Merle Haggard has made some notable records lately. And Willie Nelson makes a truly great record about every five years and shows no signs of stopping. Waylon music has a definite sweet spot. Grab any solo album he put out between ’73 and ’78 and I will make an argument that it is the greatest album ever made, the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” notwithstanding.

I’ve always felt like Waylon has not been properly revered as an icon. Willie’s shadow looms large, probably because the quality of his music has been more consistent through the years. It’s true Waylon’s recognized as a major figure in the Outlaw movement of the 70’s. But “Outlaw” was a marketing label for a style of music. Waylon did something bigger than just sing in a certain style. He wrestled the lame Nashville machine to the ground and went on to make the music he heard in his head. It was unheard of for major artists to get to do things their way in Nashville. Willie just kind of joined on for the ride.

Waylon recorded the eight songs on “Waylon Forever” back in 1996 with his son Shooter. Shooter dug them back out and added new music from his current band and then released the album. Included is a slowed down version of “Don’t Y’all Think This Outlaw Bit Has Done Got Out Of Hand,” a song released in 1978 denouncing of the outlaw rubric. It’s plain that Shooter was aiming for a similar feel that Johnny Cash achieved with “Hurt,” an assessment of life at the end of the road. Shooter has said as much in interviews. But Cash knew what he was doing when he recorded “Hurt.” Waylon still had seven years to live and was relatively healthy at the time he re-recorded his classic song. For me, “Waylon Forever” is worth having, but if you want to hear some Waylon and don’t own “This Time,” go buy it or download it.

“Waylon Forever” made me realize I’ve been neglecting my Waylon Jones for a long time. I’ve been too busy with Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams and Howard Stern on the satellite radio. I had to take a long car trip last weekend so I loaded up six CDs in the changer. Those six CDs added up to seven albums with about four and half hours of music. I discovered he’s still Waylon F*@%in’ Jennings.

Join me next time when I put together an even longer post about another touchstone from my youth: the western writer Louis L’Amour.