lp discography - covers & lyrics

In late 1969, Waylon Jennings was wrapping up his tenure with producer Danny Davis and threw in his lot with Lee Hazlewood. Singer of Sad Songs features a title cut produced by the former, with the rest of the album done by the latter. It was, up to that time, Waylon's most compelling album, and stands the test of time based not only on Hazlewood's sympathetic ear and visionary sense of keeping Jennings at the dead center of his mix, but also in the selection of material, which proved to be pivotal for this stage of Jennings' career and the universe that would begin to take place in earnest in early 1972. Here with a host of musicians that includes Reggie Young, Sonny Curtis, Ronnie Dyson, and Randy Meisner is a cycle of songs that over three decades later still sounds electrifying for its poignancy, musical dynamics, and group interplay. From the title track to a rollicking cover of George Jones' "Ragged But Right," an open and moving reading of Tim Hardin's "If I Were a Carpenter," Utah Phillips' "Rock, Salt and Nails," and an early recording of Billy Joe Shaver's "Honky Tonk Heroes," Jennings and Hazlewood up the rock & roll ante in Jennings' sound. Up to three and four guitars play on each track, with Hazlewood stripping everything back while adding the layers of phase and reverb that would become signifiers of Jennings' trademark. The performances here are suave but not smooth, moving but far from melodramatic. In fact, they are archetypal — if not overly rowdy — readings of the renegade freedom songs that literally spawned the outlaw generation's reliance on anthems of alienated individuals at odds with everything and everyone, yet still seeking purpose and a way home from the edge of a drifting way of life. Singer of Sad Songs is a myth, one of the hardest of Jennings' records to find, despite its great historical and musical — not to mention pleasurable — significance.

WAYLON JENNINGS

SINGER OF SAD SONGS