Black on Black
| Black on Black | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Waylon Jennings | ||||
| Released | February 1982 | |||
| Recorded | Moman's Studio, Nashville | |||
| Genre | Country/Outlaw country | |||
| Length | 29:16 | |||
| Label | RCA Victor | |||
| Producer | Chips Moman | |||
| Waylon Jennings chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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Black on Black is an album by Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1982.
By 1981, Jennings excessive lifestyle had caught up to him financially. Despite a string of #1 albums and sellout concerts, the overhead of keeping his show on the road combined with his cocaine habit had drained nearly all of his resources. In the audio version of his autobiography Waylon, he admitted to spending up to $1,500 a day on the drug and also confessed to being out of touch with the personnel on his tours:
In the spring of 1981, Jennings, drummer Richie Albright, and financial advisor Bill Robinson went over the singer's business affairs at a hotel in Los Angeles and found that he owed more than two million dollars and was over $800,000 overdrawn to the bank. Jennings slowly crawled out of debt by trimming down his organization and touring heavily, including a lucrative engagement in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, Jennings' money woes came at a time when his health and creativity were flagging primarily due to his continued reliance on cocaine.
Jennings reunited with Chips Moman for Black on Black, recording the album at Moman's studio in Nashville. Jennings and Moman had previously collaborated on one of the singers biggest LPs, 1977's Ol' Waylon, and the producer had co-written what turned out to be the biggest single of Jennings' career, "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)." Moman had also just produced the phenomenally successful Willie Nelson album Always on My Mind. On Ol' Waylon, Moman had introduced a slicker sound without sacrificing the grit that was at the heart of Jennings' music, but Black on Black features a different sound than most Jennings albums of the period, prominently including electric pianos and backing vocals, the latter performed primarily by Jennings' wife, Jessi Colter. In his AllMusic review of Black on Black, Thom Jurek criticizes the over-production and Moman in particular:
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