Wanted! The Outlaws

Performer: Waylon Jennings
Artist: Steve Earle
Distributor: BMG (distributor)

Notes: /Willie Nelson/Jessi Colter/Tompall Glaser. The 1996 reissue of WANTED! THE OUTLAWS includes nine additional tracks from the original sessions and one new song ("Nowhere Road"). Personnel includes: Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, Tompall Glaser (vocals); Steve Earle (acoustic guitar); Richard Bennett (guitar, mando-guitar); Robby Turner (pedal steel); Mickey Raphael (bass harmonica); Garry Tallent (bass); Greg Morrow (drums); Ray Kennedy (tambourine). Producers include: Waylon Jennings, Tompall Glaser, Ronny Light, Danny Davis, Chet Atkins. Compilation producer: Steve Lindsey. Engineers include: Al Pachucki, Leslie Ladd, Tom Pick. Includes liner notes by Chet Flippo. Digitally remastered by Benny Quinn (Masterfonics, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee). The term "outlaw" had been bandied about after Waylon Jennings' 1972 hit "Ladies Love Outlaws," but it didn't permanently gel until the release of the album Wanted! The Outlaws in 1976. The songs in this packaged product weren't new -- the album contained previously released material by Jennings, Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser, and Jennings' wife Jessi Colter (who had hit the charts a year earlier with "I'm Not Lisa"). But it marked the industry's recognition of the changing times, and as the center point of a campaign to publicize Nashville's new "progressive" breed, it worked like a charm. It quickly became the first country album to sell more than a million copies, and it boosted the careers of all involved. ~ Kurt Wolff In the mid-1970s, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and a few other cohorts turned the Nashville country establishment on its ear, introducing a gritty, rock & roll feel and iconoclastic, rebellious sensibility to the staid institution country music had become. The breath of fresh air that they were, they became hugely popular, and were justly hailed as the vanguard of "Outlaw Country." After releasing a number of definitive solo albums in the preceding few years, Jennings and Nelson collaborated on one of the most popular albums of the genre, 1976's WANTED! THE OUTLAWS. Aided by Waylon's wife Jessi Colter and pal Tompall Glaser (of the Glaser Brothers), they crafted perhaps the ultimate Outlaw Country mission statement. The rough-and-ready ethos of Jennings's "Honky Tonk Heroes (Like Me)" and Nelson's "Me and Paul" is pretty much ground zero for the style, bearing undeniable energy, earthy humanism, and irresistibly catchy lyrical and melodic motifs. Jennings and Nelson would scale even greater heights of fame in the years to come, but were seldom ever as much at the top of their game.

Q (11/96, p.152) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "One of the milestones of country music....helped put an official seal on the whole Outlaw movement....It may not seem exactly radical now but it did at the time with the likes of `My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys,' `A Good Hearted Woman' and `Me And Paul' rightly going on to become the stuff of legend."

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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