Waylon & Willie
| Waylon & Willie | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson | ||||
| Released | January 1978 | |||
| Genre | Country, outlaw country | |||
| Length | 32:50 | |||
| Label | RCA Victor | |||
| Producer | Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Sam Tate | |||
| Waylon Jennings chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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| Rolling Stone | (not rated) link |
Waylon & Willie is a duet album by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, released on RCA Victor in 1978. It stayed at #1 album on the country album charts for ten weeks and would spend a total of 126 weeks on the country charts.
At the dawn of 1978, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson had attained country music superstar status. Jennings had scored three #1 country albums in a row, and his most recent, 1977's Ol' Waylon, included what turned out to be the biggest hit single of his career, "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)." Nelson, who had taken a verse on the Jennings single, had enjoyed blockbuster success of his own with the release of his 1975 West Texas epic Red Headed Stranger and would again with Stardust in 1978. After so many one-off collaborations and tours, it was inevitable that the pair would record an album of duets, although the fact that they were both contracted to different record labels (Waylon with RCA and Willie with Columbia) made matters difficult. According to RCA executive Jerry Bradley, Jennings initially attempted to overdub his vocals on a few old Nelson recordings (Nelson had recorded for RCA Victor from 1965 to 1972) but struggled to do so; instead, he approached Columbia Records in Nashville with the idea of recording an album of new duets. In a surprising show of cooperation, Columbia agreed. Jennings and Nelson had achieved great success previously, winning the CMA award for Duo of the Year for their song "Good Hearted Woman" in 1976 and were the marquee attractions on the Wanted! The Outlaws compilation, country music's first million selling album.
The album contains three songs sung individually by Jennings and Nelson, as well as five duets. Although it was presented as a new release, several of the tracks had been recorded for some time and had been redone using overdubbing. The Nelson-sung "It's Not Suppose to Be That Way" and "If You Can Touch Her at All" had appeared on Jennings' 1974 album This Time (which Nelson had co-produced), as had the song "Pick Up The Tempo," which is featured on this LP as a duet. Nelson's guitar playing is noticeably absent on the recording.
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Wikipedia