Waylon Jennings Album: “White Lightning [KTel]”

This budget disc contains some selections of the great Waylon's earliest recordings between 1958 to about 1965. The two main problems with this disc is that it is very short (under 30 minuets) and all of the tracks are taken from vinyl instead of the original tapes which I understand still exist ("Jolie Blond" may not be from vinyl, but this song appeared on the late 70's vinyl box set "The Complete Buddy Holly" and may have been taken from a mint copy of that box.) Having said that, the sound quality is still very good and listen able.

I'm not familiar with Waylon's famous 70's recordings so I'm not going to put this is in perspective by comparison. These recordings quickly prove the talents of Waylon Jennings. What caught my attention was the high quality of performance maintained through out the whole disc, even with different types of material. The style of the music is not easily to classify. Thankfully that's what gives it it's depth. Just filling it under country would be a silly injustice. The style has flavors of Rock & Roll, early (non-modern) country, and a touch of oldies style ballads (a vague term I don't like to use, but given the time frame of these recordings, might be appropriate to mention). A real testament to me was the covers of the classic Roy Orbison material. The fact that these songs are such classic and memorable performances by Roy, I thought it would be impossible to equal or even improve upon them (I would say which, I'll let you be the judge). Waylon's voice is strong and sensitive and I was amazed at the justice he gave these songs.

Also worth a mention is the tight backing band. They provide great finesse and sensibility to Waylon and the music and really rock as well. Because of the fine musicianship that transcended genres, I thought to myself "this isn't really stereotypical country at all". Not being much of a country music fan, there was never a time I felt uncomfortable with the music.

I think it's safe to say that anyone who likes Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison would certainly enjoy these recordings. I'm not saying however that this is just a rip-off of these two artists. This is indeed all pure Waylon.

All in all this is a good taster for people who haven't heard any of Waylon's early recordings and is weary to spend the money on the Bear Family discs. After you hear this, you'll want to hear more and will probably get those discs anyway. I know I do!!