When Sin Stops

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Performer: Waylon Jennings
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: It's easy to forget that most singers have to start from somewhere, and that their style was only achieved after lots of sweat in low paying dives. Waylon Jennings is a case in point. As one of country music's outlaws during the '70s, he was known for his resonate, manly vocals, delivered against a phase shifter-driven electric guitar backdrop ("Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way," "Clyde"). To travel back to the early '60s, as When Sin Stops does, is as revealing as it is bizarre. Even when listening to Jennings' '60s work on RCA, it was plain that nobody -- record executive Chet Atkins or Jennings himself -- really understood his talent. This is equally clear on When Sin Stops, an album that contains Jennings' first recordings and a few other oddities originally released on Waylon at JD's. The problem isn't that these recordings are bad (though the sound quality is pretty rough), but that no one had figured out how to make Jennings stand out from every other singer on the make. Nor had they figured out that certain songs, "Big Mamou" and "Dream Baby," sounded kind of silly when Jennings tore into them. It doesn't help that the tempos are often too fast. Still, When Sin Stops, while somewhat weak in the musical department, provides a nice snapshot of the young man who, in time, would become Waylon Jennings. That alone makes it worth the price of admission. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.

Texan country singer Waylon Jennings was always a bit of a rocker. Early on, he played bass with Buddy Holly, and his first solo records included Beatles covers, highly unusual for a country artist at the time. Jennings was one of the key figures of the outlaw country movement of the 1970s, rejecting the lush countrypolitan sound in favor of a raw, electrified approach that owed more to the Rolling Stones than to Billy Sherrill. With a small band and simple arrangements, Jennings introduced contemporary rock-oriented grooves into his hard-hitting country sound, adding some funky grit to common-man poetics on tunes about the tougher side of life. He inspired a subsequent generation of country iconoclasts, and spurred on contemporaries like Willie Nelson and Tompall Glaser.

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