Waylon/Singer of Sad Songs

Waylon Jennings | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 12, 2010)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collector's Choice
• ASIN: B002Q9MZNI
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,251 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Brown Eyed Handsome Man

2. Just Across The Way

3. Don't Play The Game

4. Shutting Out The Light

5. I May Never Pass This Way Again

6. The Thirty Third Of August

7. Yellow Haired Woman

8. Where Love Has Died

9. All Of Me Belongs To You

10. Yes, Virginia (Remake)

11. This Time Tomorrow (I'll Be Gone)

12. Singer Of Sad Songs

13. Sick And Tired

14. Time Between Bottles Of Wine

15. Must You Throw Dirt In My Face

16. No Regrets

17. Ragged But Right

18. Honky Tonk Woman

19. She Comes Running

20. If I Were A Carpenter

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Waylon Jennings starts to dig in his heels, January 12, 2010

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Waylon/Singer of Sad Songs (Audio CD)

By the time Waylon and Singer of Sad Songs were released in 1970, a number of things had changed in RCA's approach to recording Waylon Jennings. Chet Atkins had turned production over to Danny Davis, with whom Jennings was more able and willing to butt heads, and by the second album, Jennings' Phoenix compatriot Lee Hazlewood was brought in to replace Davis. Jennings himself had shown sparks of independence from Nashville's way of doing things on his previous couple of albums, but here he stretches ever further, picking classic and new rock `n' roll songs and material from Mickey Newbury, Tom Rush, and Tim Hardin. Nashville and the general music industry had changed as well, with lusher productions starting to give way to singer-songwriters whose voice and songs were made the central focus.

Unfortunately these changes didn't immediately lead to the radical changes Jennings would introduce a couple years later, and winning songs like Liz Anderson's "Yes, Virginia" are still infiltrated by background cooing and over-arranged answer vocals. On the other hand, Jennings opens Waylon with "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," a 1956 Chuck Berry song that had been a 1956 R&B hit on the Chicago-based Chess label. He apparently knew which way the musical winds were blowing as the single charted to #3. Jennings lets fly his abilities to sing tender folk and pained blues, with the bass and drums occasionally matching his assertiveness. Mickey Newbury's "The Thirty Third of August" has a fantastic arrangement of acoustic guitar, high-string bass, drums, organ and strings; this sounds little like Nashville product and carries the song's heavy lyrics. The album is uneven and dated by dabs of electric sitar, but it was the most satisfying statement of Jennings direction to that date.

Jennings' third album for RCA in 1970, Singer of Sad Songs, was waxed over three days in Los Angeles with fellow former-Phoenician Lee Hazlewood and a few West Coast musicians. Hazlewood had just come off releasing the International Submarine Band's Safe at Home on his LHI label, so he was in a better position to understand Jennings' new ideas than the RCA staff in Nashville. The album's only hit, and the only track produced by RCA's Danny Davis, is the title song, which stopped short of the Top 10 at #12. Much better are a spirited cover of Chris Kenner's 1957 "Sick and Tired" that trades the originals New Orleans R&B bounce for Jennings' merger of country, folk, rock and soul. He covers the Louvin Brothers' "Must You Throw Dirt in My Face" and the vintage "Ragged But Right," and picks several contemporary folk songs. Jennings sounds relaxed and plugged in to his song choices, though his cover of the Rolling Stones "Honky Tonk Woman" feels forced and slightly off the mark.

Both albums, but particularly Singer of Sad Songs, are the statements of a musician born to the early West Texas rock `n' roll of Buddy Holly, developed in the bars of Arizona, and steeped in country classics. Though he'd yet to fully break free of RCA and Nashville's restrained way of doing things, his song selections planted the seeds of what was to come. Waylon appears to have been previously reissued on the American Beat label, but is no longer in print. Singer of Sad Songs makes its domestic CD debut here, providing an answer to the question "what album features a duet between Waylon Jennings and Lee Hazlewood?" Collectors' Choice's two-fer includes an eight-page booklet with full-panel reproductions of both album covers - front and back - and new liner notes by Colin Escott. This is a great way to introduce yourself to Jennings' budding outlaw years. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great albums, April 15, 2010

By 

Mark Twain of Butane - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Waylon/Singer of Sad Songs (Audio CD)

The two albums on this CD are pretty good. I like most of the songs on the first half of the collection (from the album "Waylon"), albeit the album is quite uneven in its continuity. RCA in the late '60s and early '70s had a nasty habit of packaging Waylon Jennings' albums using a grab-bag approach with material that spannned sessions over 3 or more years. I never understood why they did this with his material, especially since they didn't do it with other artists on the RCA roster. The differnces in the songs becomes quite apparent when you compare "Shutting Out the Light" and "33rd of August", the latter sounds so modern that it would seem as if it didn't belong on the album.
The second half of the CD "Singer of Sad Songs" is pretty decent too. Everything except the title song was recorded in L.A. over just a few days so the whole thing is much more congruent than "Waylon" was, but I think some of the song choices the producer made didn't seem to fit Waylon or his style very well.
But all in all I've been listening to this CD off and on for a month now and I there's a lot on it I really like to listen to. Buy it and you won't regret it.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Classic Waylon, March 8, 2010

By 

K. Scroggins - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Waylon/Singer of Sad Songs (Audio CD)

It's nice to finally see Waylon's back catalog finally getting released.

Just wish that who ever was handling the mastering duties did a better job and just left the tapes alone, instead of re-eqing.