Dreaming My Dreams [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]

Waylon Jennings

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 23, 2001)
• Original Release Date: 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Buddha
• ASIN: B00005QD6M
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,870 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording
As Jennings introduces the live take of "Bob Wills is Still the King" that closes this otherwise studio-bound album, one rowdy audience member yells a drunken affirmation. Or maybe something else, given that Jennings breaks off mid-sentence, seemingly ready to leap into the crowd and open a Texas-size can of whup-ass on the guy. That he doesn't--and gives a smoking read of the song instead--is emblematic of the success of 1975's Dreaming My Dreams. Not yet having succumbed to the overblown boasts of "I've Always Been Crazy" that sold millions of records later in the decade, he's content here to wryly look askance at the Nashville establishment and his reputation as an "outlaw" and sing a couple of sweet love songs, all while playing plenty of tasty rhythm guitar. A keeper, and one of the most welcome CD reissues in years. (The 2001 reissue adds two bonus tracks from the film Mackintosh & T.J..) --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars series of dreams, February 28, 2002

By	Jerome Clark (Canby, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Dreaming My Dreams is the best Waylon Jennings ever got. After that, while there were other good songs and records, superstardom and the abuse of substances took their toll, and many of the songs -- especially the hits -- got ever more cartoonish and self-referential in the Hank Williams, Jr., vein. But before Jennings lost his artist's grip, there was this, as well as the earlier Honky Tonk Heroes, his enduring tribute to Billy Joe Shaver's songwriting genius. Dreaming My Dreams, which manages to fuse honkytonk grit, rock'n'roll rhythm, and folk melodicism, sounds like no other country album ever made.

Only Jack Clement's dopey "Let's All Help the Cowboys (Sing the Blues)" anticipates the inferior material to come. The rest is all stunning stuff, brought to life and breath via affectingly spare arrangements, with little to get in the way of the tightly wound vocals. The listener seems to be hearing the middle-of-the-night reflections of a man drifting in and out of consciousness, memories and dreams interwoven so that one can no longer be torn from the other, the effect enhanced by the somnambulant fade-out that concludes each song.

Though nearly all of the songs are as good as songs get, the high point is Waylon and Curtis Buck's "Waymore's Blues." Here Jennings goes back to the roots of country music and beyond, to rewrite a 19th-Century American folk song known in its different but related versions as "Milwaukee Blues," "Jay Gould's Daughter," and even, in some variants, "Casey Jones." He even tosses in a couple of traditional verses and adds one so disingenuously sexually explicit that it may as well have been borrowed from an old-time downhome blues. "Waymore's Blues" is the masterpiece within the masterpiece.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dreaming my Dreams Title Track is divine longing, August 31, 2005

By	Hello Kitty Palm Beach (Palm Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews

I grew up listening to Waylon and his buddies and all the crazy eclectic things my parents liked (Peter Paul & Mary, John Denver, Willie, Merle, Glen Campbell). This album is essential Waylon, IMHO; if you want to understand him in basics, this is it. It speaks to his roots, musical background, his influence on Nashville and Country Music [back when it was still Country and Western Music] and should be required listening.

The title track is one my favorite all time songs; Waylon's black hole deep baritone is hauntingly gorgous and painfully longing.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What does it say on your shirt?, July 8, 2005

By	R. N. Owen (FERNDALE, MID GLAMORGAN United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Some records are so perfect there's not a second you'd want to fade or edit out. This was my introduction to Waymore, many years ago. I had the good fortune to discover him via someone who had a number of his records so it was a real eye-opener to find a singer I'd never heard of with a back catalogue of such high quality. I love the record for a number of reasons: the voice; the musicians; the songs, but more than anything else it was memorable for showing me a country band could SWING. It's not rock or blues or jazz but it has it's own feel and, of course, caused me to check out the likes of Bob Wills - not exactly a household name in the United Kingdom. Waylon was making good records til he died, but he never improved on this. Wonderful.