Lonesome, On'ry and Mean is the quintessential
Waylon Jennings outlaw record.
Waylon produced the set -- the first unfettered by the bonds of
RCA -- with his own band, and the results are nothing less than electrifying.
Steve Young, the perennial
country and
folk music outsider, may have penned the title cut, but
Waylon's delivery as an anthem bears in it all of his years of frustration at not being able to make the music he wanted to. Fury is a better word for what is heard in the grain of the song's lyrics.
Young's own version is devastating, but this one is transcendent. (And why is it that
Travis Tritt was picked to sing this at
Waylon's memorial instead of
Young, who was also present? Talk about misguided justice.) But the boundaries between
rock & roll and
country come down once again on this album in
Kris Kristofferson's
"Me & Bobby McGee," as
folk and post-
psychedelia meet Texas in
Mickey Newbury's
"San Francisco Mabel Joy" and the broken, road-weary
pop honky tonk balladry of
Danny O'Keefe's
"Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues." Add to this
Johnny Cash's
"Gone to Denver" and
Willie Nelson's
"Pretend I Never Happened," and you have an outsider's dream. That the rest of the recording is just as consistent, just as seamless in its execution, production, and delivery, makes
Lonesome, On'ry and Mean the first seriously pitched battle in the 1970s
country music wars. And this one went to
Jennings and his fans, hands down. ~ Thom Jurek
![The Best of Crystal Gayle [Curb]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0715187764422_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "The Best of Crystal Gayle [Curb]")
