WAYLON JENNINGS

The 1970s were the heyday for American country and western songwriters. Without question, many of the greatest songs of the genre were penned by the pioneers in the decades prior, but artists were too often chained to the Nashville Sound and overzealous producers bent on stamping out endless versions of the same hitmakers. But by the late '60s, pickers started migrating away from the constraints that the record industry put on them, spending time in Texas and even California and finding their own voices. Some, like Willie Nelson, were probably emboldened by the freedom that their success as a writer allowed them, while others were simply determined to create on their own terms. I feel like 1971's The Taker/Tulsa was Waylon's first real statement record, even though it came more than a dozen full lengths into his then-relatively-short solo career. The record swings a little harder, the burners are a little faster, and he builds a bridge between the layered studio production of establishment Nashville in "(Don't Let The Sun Set On You) Tulsa" and the almost funky swing of Kristofferson's "The Taker," the biggest hit on the record and one of the first real shots in the battle that Outlaw Country would wage against the industry throughout the decade. Sometime in the '80s, seizing on the commercial popularity of the artists who had strived to pave their own collective musical path, players like RCA issued literally dozens of collections pre-Outlaw recordings from Waylon and Willie, who had both been under contract with the label for much of the '60s, while fly by night labels started repackaging early recordings in an effort to jump on the bandwagon and cash in. The ultimate result is that you can come across some crucial 1960's country for even cheaper than the relatively affordable original releases, and you can find them literally everywhere. This copy of 1984's The Taker, from UK reissue monolith Everest, takes about half of The Taker/Tulsa and combines it with his versions of "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town" (Mel Tillis), "Today I Started Loving You Again" (Merle Haggard), and an additional Kristofferson track, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" just for good measure. Even though I prefer The Taker/Tulsa in its original form, if only for the songs that didn't make this compilation, the substitutions maintain the feel and flow (most specifically the version of John Hartford's "Gentle On My Mind," which stands with the title track as the highlight of this collection), and you can practically hear Jennings pulling away from the Establishment while still working as a part of it. The moral, I suppose, is to not skip over the 49¢ cassette bin at those rural Goodwills...

THE TAKER