Waylon Jennings

Every one of Jennings' classic albums opens with a monster anthem, and 1976's Are You Ready for the Country is no exception. The title track is from Neil Young's Harvest LP, and Jennings spikes it with RnB horns, wailing female vocals and groovy flange. All in all, Jennings' follow-up to Dreaming My Dreams actually feels more like Muscle Shoals-bred soft rock/country soul than outlaw honky-tonk. Is that a problem? Well, over the years Are You Ready for the Country has taken a backseat to This Time and Honky Tonk Heroes. But it's hard to hear why when cranking jammers like "Can't You See."

For the first time, I am willing to believe Waylon is an Outlaw: got to be, to record
"MacArthur Park (Revisited)" at this point in his career. That soppiest of pretentious pop
tunes heads up the second side of Are You Ready for the Country. Jennings sings it with
conviction, but to sit through its six and a half minutes more than once requires a
preternatural taste for kitsch. Conversely, the title song, Neil Young's jangling, o... More >