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Waylon Jennings died of diabetes in 2002, after an almost mythic life of
highs and lows, both musical and otherwise. Narrowly avoiding dying on the
plane crash that killed Buddy Holly in 1959, having ceded his seat on the
plane at the last minute to The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), he went on to
break free of Nashville constraints in the early '70s.
In so doing he became one of the
key players in the so-called "Outlaw Country" scene (with his great friend
and ally Willy Nelson), all the while battling some well-documented
addictions and consequent health problems, and finding time to serve as
narrator and write and sing the theme tune to popular US comedy The
Dukes Of Hazzard.
After more than 40 years in the music business he left behind a long
and distinguished country and rock back catalogue, which is now being
supplemented by this release, put together by son Shooter (and his own
backing band) using previously unreleased vocal recordings left behind
after his father's death.
Clearly, Shooter could only work with what was available, so it would
perhaps be churlish to observe that, at only eight tracks, including a
couple of cover versions (White Room - originally by Cream, and
Neil Young's Are You Ready For The Country), this feels a little
thin. Much of the rest of the material comprises re-recorded versions of
songs that will already be familiar to fans of the artist, with only one
genuinely "new" original track, I Found The Body - an almost psychedelic
take on country rock.
Each track is delivered with a vocal that lends credence and character to
Jennings' grizzled tales of hard living. "He slipped the handcuffs on
behind my back / And left me reeling on a steel reel rack", from Ain't
Livin' Long Like This, for example, which - in a possibly deliberate irony -
is programmed to follow Outlaw Shit (the title rather marvellously amended
from the original Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out Of Hand),
featuring Waylon complaining about the false outlaw image imposed on him and
his cohorts by big city music industry, mythologizing: "What started out to
be a joke / The law don't understand".
The tracks that surprise here are the White Room cover, which the singer
imbues with a sense of both trippy drama and definite grandeur, while
still very much claiming it as his own; and the previously mentioned I Found
The Body, which has definite shades of post-Barrett Pink Floyd in its
production values and also uses a peculiar vocal distortion. There's evidence
here, then, of a willingness to experiment with the genre right up to the
end of his life, although it is hard to decode how much of the resulting
innovation can be attributed to the father, and how much to the son.
Other than this it is frankly quite difficult to see for whom, bar Waylon
Jennings completists, this album will really hold much appeal. In nearly
all instances the listener would be better advised to go back to the
original versions than the reworkings here, and uncover for themselves the
back catalogue highlights of this unique, intriguing artist. That is where
the gems will be uncovered - not, regrettably, in this
well-intentioned misfire of a compilation.
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