Rating: - Survivor
Remorse and fatalism hang over his music like morning mist on an Iowa corn field. Yet his art, uniquely American, pulses with a zest for life. Waylon Jennings (1937-2002) was/is a survivor. A black and blue(s) survivor.
The lives and deaths of three men - country musician Hank Williams Sr. (died 1953), actor James Dean (1955), and rocker and fellow Texan Buddy Holly (1959) - paved the artistic road on which Jennings was to travel. Jennings' connection to the "The Day The Music Died" (reference song "American Pie" by Don McLean) has become, by now, show-biz lore. The most profound wrinkle appeared in 1996 (the same year this CD was released) when Jennings wrote in his autobiography that he joked with Holly the night of Feb. 3, 1959, after giving up his airplane seat to J.P. Richardson (a.k.a. The Big Bopper) to ride on a freezing bus, Waylon said "I hope your damn plane crashes!" Sadly, we know the rest.
Instead of curling up in a ball Jennings decided to honor Holly and others who vanished from his life by having a ball. That spirit is all over "The Essential Waylon Jennings." To make the point the back side of the CD has a picture of a young, beardless, half-smiling Waylon, the appearance he had when he played bass for Holly.
Jennings' creative declaration of independence as well as his tribute to Williams is contained in "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way." Williams' style had been turned into Nashville corporate orthodoxy by the mid-1960s. Waylon reminded the stuffed shirts and bean counters that Williams was an innovator and the ultimate to tribute to such a person, for those so inclined, is to innovate. Waylon loved Hank Williams but not the Church of Hank Williams.
Dean gets a mention in "Waymore's Blues" - "Jimmy's he's dead, he's been a long time gone." Waylon accomplished a two-fer for Holly and Dean in naming one of his sons Buddy Dean Jennings.
The CD opens with a hard-edged near parody of Johnny Cash's ode to romantic loyalty - "Walk The Line." Waylon's version is titled "Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line." Jennings is serving notice that he's blacker than Cash, a friend, former roommate, and fellow member of The Highwaymen. If there's ever a Mount Rushmore for outlaw country the faces of The Highwaymen - Jennings, Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson - would surely comprise it.
"The Taker" was penned by Kristofferson (along with Shel Silverstein) and Jennings does his friend's work justice employing dulcet words and a charming melody. Yet violence lurks, reminding one of "The Seducer's Diary" in philosopher Soren Kierkegaard's "Either/Or." "Good-Hearted Woman" (co-written with Nelson) is the natural flip side of "The Taker," testifying to the natural goodness of most women. Waylon switches to first person at song's end, admitting that he's been a good-timin' man.
"You Asked Me" and "Amanda" are the CD's two gentlest love songs. "You Asked Me" displays Waylon's vulnerability, a softer side of the man behind of "Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line." Memorable lyrics: "Let the world call me a fool..."
Waylon puts his black back on for "Rainy-Day Woman." It's a song about love amid sadness that could be grouped with Led Zeppelin's "Hey Hey What Can I Do." In typical Waylon fashion, our artist takes an idea or mood found in a contemporary's work and darkens it. Compare "Rainy-Day Woman" to Gordon Lightfoot's "Rainy-Day People" to see what I mean. Yet Waylon isn't obsessed with sadness. "Storms Never Last" (a duet with Jessi Colter, Waylon's fourth and final wife) is really Part II of "Rainy-Day Woman," offering encouragement to the lovers.
"Lucille" suggests surreal art in juxtaposition to a song of the same name by Kenny Rogers. Kenny plays the would-be lover in his "Lucille." Waylon is the aggrieved husband in his version. Picture the two songs/worlds crossing as Rogers chats up a woman on a neighboring barstool only to be interrupted by Waylon, who is, well, wailin'.
"Wild Side of Life/It Wasn't G-d Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels" (duet with Colter) gives voice to the gulf between mainline religion and the world as it exists. Specifically, the seeming absence of G-d and the fact His creation appears to have been hijacked.
"Just to Satisfy You" (duet with Nelson) is another back-door foray into religion, showing us that brazenness is a sly idolatry demanding human sacrifices. We're left to ponder which is worse - the old idolatries (sacrifices of bodies) or the new (sacrifice of soul).
Softening this train of ideas, Jennings injects his playful theme song to "The Dukes of Hazzard." Anyone who recalls the opening credits of the TV series will chuckle when Waylon sings "...You know my momma love me. But she don't understand why they keep showing me hands and not my face on TV." (Answer: If they use your face they have to pay more for it).
Jennings comes back to religion in "Broken Promise Land," using Bible imagery to demonstrate the calamities of marital infidelity. If you think cheating is going to bring you to a new world you're right, Waylon tells us, but chances are you won't like what you find. The song also prompts a meditation that G-d ultimately did kindness to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam by having them die in exile, separating them from the inevitable sinfulness of people called upon to conquer and/or zealously defend a tract of land.
"America" is arguably the CD's finest song. This song or "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to The Basics of Love)" should have been the closing song. The omission of "Luckenbach, Texas" and setting of "America" in the play list are my only complaints on this CD.
One of contemporary music's leading rebels pays patriotic tribute to his/our country in "America." Fittingly, it contains some criticism. The line about the red man - "...Promise then follow through" is certainly about government mistreatment of American Indians. But it harkens further to the spirit behind author William Faulkner's urging to teach blacks responsibility alongside freedom. Faulkner and Jennings implicitly reject materialist, government-enforced "solutions." Pernicious segregation, affirmative action, and monopolist gambling privileges for Indian tribes merely duck the issue. The heart of the matter is this experiment in human living is predicated on social brotherhood (as Waylon's heart-rousing song makes clear).
Central to that is the realization that life is a struggle and you have yourself and other members of the American family (Waylon: "...Brothers all black and white. Yellow too...") and that's all you need or should expect.
The opening lines of "America" wisely throw out the historical "luck" explanation. The references to ethnic heterodoxy link spiritual threads to the biblical story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. The wearer of this cloak, this idealistic dreamer, becomes the leader of the world and protector of his brothers who would grow into nations (Joseph spoke all of the world's languages, according to Jewish legend). U2 comes at this idea from a Christian viewpoint in "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Lyrics: "I believe in the kingdom come. Then all the colors bleed into one..."
Embedded as we are today in a welfare/warfare state context, reality forces us to acknowledge that large-scale immigration and world politics have a considerable downside. Yet this multi-colored nation notion has come to light our City on a Hill (to quote John Winthrop and Ronald Reagan). Its profundity even escaped most of America's Founding Fathers, religiously inspired though they were.
Thanks in part to modernist conceptions, thanks in part to his own spiritual fiber, Waylon Jennings chose to wear this civic religion on his sleeves, sleeves that covered the arms of this unique black and blue(s) survivor.