3 Deep Cuts by Waylon Jennings That Every Country Music Fan Should Hear
Even the youngest of Waylon Jennings’ admirers will not be able to erase the impact he left behind when he passed away in 2002. During his lifetime, Jennings put out 43 studio albums, the first being Waylon at JD’s in 1964 and the last being Closing in on the Fire in 1998. The quantity of LPs in his already extensive discography has been more than doubled by collaborations, anthologies, and posthumous releases.
In the US, Jennings had sixteen No. 1 singles and over 30 top-10 hits. Though they were never hits, the three songs below are as bit as wonderful as some of the ones that made Hoss a household name.
“There Is No God in Mexico”—A Complete Outlaw Nation
With the release of his albums Ladies Love Outlaws and Good Hearted Woman in 1972, Waylon Jennings started the genre shift that would eventually be known as Outlaw Country. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until the publication of Honky Tonk Heroes in 1973 that he completely embraced the new sound.
Jennings believed that “Outlaw” had little to do with the musical subject matter. It was, instead, the essence of the music they were producing. Adhering to your convictions and trusting your creative intuition were hallmarks of being an outlaw. The Texas-born singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver was one of the few artists in the genre who best embodied that. All except one of the songs on Honky Tonk Heroes, such as “Ain’t No God in Mexico,” were written by Shaver.
