Nashville Rebel [Box Set]

Disc 1
1	Jole Blon 1:56
2	My Baby Walks All Over Me 2:09
3	That's the Chance I'll Have to Take 2:06
4	Stop the World (And Let Me Off) 2:03
5	Anita, You're Dreaming 2:26
6	Time to Bum Again 2:02
7	(That's What You Get) For Lovin' Me 2:27
8	Green River 2:28
9	Nashville Rebel 1:51
10	Mental Revenge 2:23
11	Love of the Common People 2:55
12	The Chokin' Kind 2:28
13	Walk on out of My Mind 2:20
14	I Got You / Anita Carter 2:38
15	Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line 2:21
16	Yours Love 2:18
17	Just to Satisfy You 2:18
18	Something's Wrong in California 2:30
19	Brown Eyed Handsome Man 2:04
20	Cedartown, Georgia 2:50
21	I Ain't the One / Jessi Colter 2:14
22	Singer of Sad Songs 2:58
23	It's Sure Been Fun 2:38
24	Six White Horses 2:38
25	People in Dallas Got Hair 2:18
Disc 2
1	The Taker 2:22
2	Mississippi Woman 2:50
3	Lovin' Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again) 3:03
4	(Don't Let the Sun Set on You) Tulsa 3:07
5	Sweet Dream Woman 3:00
6	Ladies Love Outlaws 2:33
7	Under Your Spell Again / Jessi Colter 2:56
8	Lonesome, On'ry and Mean 3:40
9	Pretend I Never Happened 3:02
10	You Can Have Her 2:41
11	Honky Tonk Heroes 3:37
12	Black Rose 2:29
13	We Had It All 2:46
14	You Ask Me To 2:32
15	This Time 2:27
16	It's Not Supposed to Be That Way 3:28
17	Slow Rollin' Low 2:45
18	I'm a Ramblin' Man 2:48
19	Rainy Day Woman 2:31
20	Amanda 2:59
21	Bob Wills Is Still the King 3:01
22	Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way 2:56
23	Waymore's Blues 2:42
24	The Door Is Always Open 2:39
25	Dreaming My Dreams with You 2:25
Disc 3
1	"T" for Texas 4:00
2	Freedom to Stay 4:02
3	Good Hearted Woman / Willie Nelson 2:56
4	Suspicious Minds / Jessi Colter 3:59
5	Can't You See 3:45
6	Are You Ready for the Country 3:11
7	MacArthur Park (Revisited) 6:35
8	Jac-A-Diamonds 3:25
9	Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) / Willie Nelson 3:20
10	Brand New Goodbye Song 2:54
11	The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don't Want to Get Over You) 2:09
12	Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys / Willie Nelson 2:33
13	There Ain't No Good Chain Gang 3:17
14	I've Always Been Crazy 4:14
15	Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got out of Hand 2:59
16	The Greatest Cowboy of Them All previously unreleased 3:42
17	Come with Me 3:02
18	I Ain't Living Long Like This 4:47
19	Clyde 2:41
20	Theme from the Dukes of Hazzard (Good Ol' Boys) 2:07
Disc 4
1	Storms Never Last / Jessi Colter 3:06
2	Shine 2:51
3	Just to Satisfy You / Willie Nelson 2:49
4	Women Do Know How to Carry On 3:19
5	(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay / Willie Nelson 3:23
6	Lucille (You Won't Do Your Daddy's Will) 3:26
7	Breakin' Down 3:22
8	Take It to the Limit / Willie Nelson 3:49
9	The Conversation / Hank Williams Jr. 3:52
10	I May Be Used (But Baby I Ain't Used Up) 3:01
11	Never Could Toe the Mark 2:58
12	America 3:45
13	Waltz Me to Heaven 3:07
14	Highwayman / Willie Nelson 3:03
15	Drinkin' and Dreamin' 3:01
16	Working Without a Net 2:43
17	Will the Wolf Survive? 3:30
18	What You'll Do When I'm Gone 2:58
19	Rose in Paradise 3:42
20	Rough and Rowdy Days 2:34
21	Wrong 3:00
22	I Do Believe / Willie Nelson 3:25

Barnes & Noble

Tracing the career of an oft-recorded giant like Waylon Jennings in a mere four discs is tricky business, but RCA Nashville/Legacy has done a superb job. Documenting Jennings's evolution from rock 'n' roller to folk rocker to unrepentant country Outlaw avatar, it's a fascinating journey, even without his A&M recordings from the early '60s (see the essential Phase One: The Early Years 1958-1964). Disc 1, which covers 1958 through 1969, does feature Jennings's festive, Buddy Holly-produced take on "Jole Blon" and a rare Trend single from 1961, "My Baby Walks All Over Me." Most of its 25 tracks were Chet Atkins productions that meld the smooth Nashville Sound of the time to harder rhythms that suited Waylon's authoritative baritone voice. In songs such as "Love of the Common People" and especially the doom-laden ballad "Something's Wrong in California," we hear Jennings finding a sound suited to his attitude (Fred Carter's snarling guitar on "Nashville Rebel" would become a signature component of Waylon's music) and developing into a formidable interpretive singer who could sell a song with sensitivity or muscular vocal brio.

In Disc 2, 1970-1974, when the Outlaw movement flowered, Jennings was at the forefront with "Honky Tonk Heroes," "Ladies Love Outlaws," "Amanda,"-- assured, literate, intimate tunes by Billy Joe Shaver, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Steve Young, and Waylon himself that broadened country's audience and lingua franca. Those gains are consolidated on Disc 3, 1974-1980, when Waylon continued writing compelling original (and often self-referential) tunes such as "I've Always Been Crazy" and the reality-check classic "Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out of Hand" and supplementing his repertoire with covers from an American songbook that included both Jimmie Rodgers and Neil Young ("Are You Ready for the Country"). In the 1980-1995 period covered on Disc 4, Jennings was for a time adrift on MCA, but his excellent Will the Wolf Survive (title tune by Los Lobos' David Hidalgo and Louie Perez) is featured with three cuts, and he hit another high-water mark in collaborating with Johnny Cash, Willie, and Kristofferson on the Highwayman sessions, the chart-topping title track being a highlight of this collection. A story well told: in music, in Waylon's formidable presence on disc, and in first-rate annotation. It's quite a ride. David McGee

All Music Guide

It may be hard to believe, but it's true: Legacy's four-disc 2006 box Nashville Rebel is the first comprehensive, multi-label Waylon Jennings retrospective ever assembled. During the peak of the CD box set reissue boom of the late '80s/early '90s, Waylon did receive a quasi-box in the form of 1993's Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line: The RCA Years, an excellent double-disc set that was housed in a box yet fell short of being a true box set. Starting in the late '90s, his catalog began to be overhauled -- Buddha reissued classic individual albums like Honky Tonk Heroes, Bear Family put out two huge box sets that chronicled all of his RCA work up until 1973, then the rest of his '70s work came out as two-fers overseas, while Hip-O assembled a collection of both his earliest recordings and his '80s work for MCA -- but he still lacked a set that covered his whole career, from 1958 through 1995. That's exactly what Nashville Rebel does, and it does so in superb fashion. Any career with as much great work as Waylon's is inevitably hard to condense, even at the length of a four-disc set with 92 tracks, but Nashville Rebel does the job right, providing an accurate, compelling narrative of Jennings' career, while offering all of his biggest hits along with sharply chosen lesser-known songs and rarities that help complete the picture. Any hardcore fan might find favorite songs missing, but nobody can complain about what's here -- and that applies not only to the first three discs, which trace the prime of Waylon's career, but even the fourth, which is the rare final CD on a multi-disc set that is solid, perhaps not as gripping or timeless as the music that precedes it, but it does present a convincing case that Waylon continued to make strong music right up until the later stages of his career. And this is how Nashville Rebel is like those classic box sets of the late '80s and early '90s: there is no fluff, no needlessly chosen rarities; it simply and cleanly gives the listener the essential items from a truly great artist. There is plenty of other great music within Waylon's catalog, but if this is all somebody heard from him, they would know exactly who he was and what he meant musically. That's the goal of all lavish box sets such as this, and this is one of the few that truly achieves that goal. It's an essential item, not just for country fans, but for anybody who cares about American music of the 20th century. Stephen Thomas Erlewine