Dear listeners,
I’m a sucker for anything remotely related to country music’s outlaw movement, and I recently tore through the audiobook of Brian Fairbanks’s tome “Willie, Waylon, and the Boys: How Nashville Outsiders Changed Country Music Forever,” an informative page-turner that inspired today’s playlist.
Coined in the 1970s to classify a certain kind of country music rebel, the term “outlaw” can be a little nebulous, and there’s endless debate about which artists were (and weren’t) a part of that club.* I appreciated Fairbanks’s decision, though, to focus primarily on the four artists who would form the country supergroup The Highwaymen: Texas’s braided sage Willie Nelson; the deep-voiced, country-rocking maverick Waylon Jennings; the legendary father figure Johnny Cash; and the Rhodes Scholar-turned-Nashville janitor-turned-songwriting superstar Kris Kristofferson.
In telling the stories of these four artists and the ways their careers intersected, Fairbanks also traces the larger arc of outlaw country — from its beginnings as a genuinely countercultural movement that flew in the face of the Nashville establishment, to its transformation into an empty marketing term, and its eventual rebirth in subsequent generations of freethinking country artists.
It’s difficult to distill the first wave of outlaw country down to just 10 tracks, but for this playlist, I gave it my best shot. You’ll hear songs from the aforementioned four, as well as tunes from Jessi Colter, Billy Joe Shaver and David Allan Coe. And as for those waves of outlaws who have recently revived the spirit of the Highwaymen? Stay tuned for a playlist dedicated to them in the coming weeks.
Almost busted in Laredo, but for reasons that I’d rather not disclose,
Lindsay
*Merle Haggard, for example, is sometimes grouped in with the outlaw movement. While the self-proclaimed Okie from Muskogee was the only one of the above mentioned artists to do significant jail time, there were other aspects of his career and philosophy that put him at odds with artists like Nelson, Cash and Kristofferson. Regardless of how you label him, Haggard is one of the greats — and worthy of a playlist all his own.
Listen along while you read.
1. Kris Kristofferson: “Me and Bobby McGee”
“If it sounds country, man, that’s what it is,” Kris Kristofferson mumbles at the start of the classic tune he wrote, which was made famous by Roger Miller, Gordon Lightfoot and later Janis Joplin. Her blistering version hit No. 1 in 1971, a few months after her death. On his 1970 debut LP “Kristofferson,” he delivers his rendition with a wry pathos, lending the song a rumpled everyman’s charm. “When I first heard ‘Bobby McGee,’” Willie Nelson once said, ‘I thought, ‘why didn’t I write that?’”
2. Johnny Cash: “Sunday Morning Coming Down”
The same year Kristofferson’s debut was released, Johnny Cash took another of his compositions, the down-and-out anthem “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” to No. 1 on the country charts. Cash’s co-sign was another crucial step in Kristofferson’s path to stardom. When Cash first performed “Sunday Morning Coming Down” on his short-lived variety program “The Johnny Cash Show,” legend has it that network executives tried to talk him out of singing the line, “I’m wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.” Naturally, this being Cash, he sang it anyway.
3. Waylon Jennings: “Honky Tonk Heroes”
Arguably the definitive outlaw country album, Waylon Jennings’s “Honky Tonk Heroes” (1973) was his declaration of independence, having recently renegotiated his contract with RCA Records to allow him more creative freedom. Seeking a rawer sound that eschewed studio polish, Jennings used his rowdy live band, the Waylors, and co-produced much of the album with the free-spirited artist Tompall Glaser. He also placed a bet on a young, then-unknown songwriter named Billy Joe Shaver, who wrote or co-wrote all but one song on the album, including this raucous title track.
4. Willie Nelson: “Me and Paul”
This light comedic ode to the high jinks of Nelson and his longtime drummer Paul English first appeared on Nelson’s 1971 concept album “Yesterday’s Wine,” which flopped upon its initial release but is now regarded as a precursor to some of his greatest, most ambitious work. By the time this remixed version of the song appeared on the hit 1976 compilation “Wanted! The Outlaws” — the first country album to go platinum — Nelson was a bona fide superstar, thanks to the success of his 1975 breakout “Red Headed Stranger.”
5. Jessi Colter: “Why You Been Gone So Long”
The initial wave of outlaw country was generally perceived to be a boys’ club, though there were important exceptions, like Jessi Colter, who was married to Jennings from 1969 until his death in 2002; her solo tracks and a duet with Jennings brought a refreshing female perspective to “Wanted! The Outlaws.” This buoyant, soulfully sung track appeared on her 1970 debut “A Country Star Is Born.”
6. Billy Joe Shaver: “I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train”
The Texan Billy Joe Shaver got his big break in 1973 when he worked with Jennings on “Honky Tonk Heroes.” That same year he also released his Kristofferson-produced debut album “Old Five and Dimers Like Me,” which showcased his signature songwriting voice: gruff, clever and playfully self-deprecating. “I got a good Christian raisin’ and an eighth grade education,” he sings here, “and ain’t no need in y’all a treatin’ me this way.”
7. Johnny Cash: “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”
In 1964, at the height of his success, Johnny Cash released one of the boldest albums of his career, “Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian.” Included is this incendiary single, written by the folk singer-songwriter Peter La Farge, which tells the ultimately tragic story of the Pima soldier Ira Hayes, who was one of the Marines photographed raising the American flag at Iwo Jima. When some radio stations balked at playing “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” believing its subject was too controversial for country audiences, Cash took out a full-page ad in Billboard that asked, “D.J.s — station managers — owners, etc., where are your guts?” After that provocation, it rose to No. 3 on the country chart.
8. David Allan Coe: “Willie, Waylon and Me”
David Allan Coe of Akron, Ohio, simultaneously mythologized the outlaw movement and poked fun at its commercialization in this 1977 tune, which overflows with references to country artists and rock legends. Though a peripheral figure in the outlaw inner circle, here he places himself among the marquee names: “In Texas, the talk turned to outlaws, like Willie and Waylon and me.”
9. The Highwaymen: “Highwayman”
In 1985, four icons of outlaw country — Nelson, Jennings, Cash and Kristofferson — formed the supergroup the Highwaymen. This stirring, mystical opening track (written and previously recorded by the singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb) from the first of their three albums remains the group’s most recognizable song.
10. Waylon Jennings: “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way”
Finally, this enduring 1975 anthem posed one of the defining questions of the outlaw movement: What would Hank Williams do? Jennings’s stern but stomping two-chord manifesto rejected the glitz of the Nashville sound and the lock-step homogeneity he heard on the radio: “Lord, it’s the same old tune, fiddle and guitar — where do we take it from here?” Jennings’s raw, spirited and uncompromising sound answered the question.
The Amplifier Playlist
“Willie, Waylon and the Boys: The Ultimate Outlaw Country Primer” track list
Track 1: Kris Kristofferson, “Me and Bobby McGee”
Track 2: Johnny Cash, “Sunday Morning Coming Down”
Track 3: Waylon Jennings, “Honky Tonk Heroes”
Track 4: Willie Nelson, “Me and Paul”
Track 5: Jessi Colter, “Why You Been Gone So Long”
Track 6: Billy Joe Shaver, “I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train”
Track 7: Johnny Cash, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes”
Track 8: David Allan Coe, “Willie, Waylon and Me”
Track 9: The Highwaymen, “Highwayman”
Track 10: Waylon Jennings, “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way”
Bonus Tracks
Though not technically a practitioner of outlaw country, Fairbanks does spend some time writing about Kristofferson’s second wife, the singer-songwriter Rita Coolidge. Here’s a smoldering song Kristofferson wrote for her: the title track of her 1972 album “The Lady’s Not for Sale.”
Also, I cannot recommend highly enough Mike Judge’s animated series “Tales from the Tour Bus,” which features an entire season about country music’s outlaws. While it’s unfortunately difficult to find the whole show anywhere at the moment, the premiere episode, about the great Johnny Paycheck, is currently streaming for free on the Roku Channel.
And if you want even more country music history, you can always check out the popular and meticulously researched podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones — written and hosted by David Allan Coe’s son Tyler Mahan Coe.
The post Willie, Waylon and the Boys: the Ultimate Outlaw Country Primer appeared first on New York Times.
