Are You Ready for the Country

In 1977, Waylon Jennings was still at the peak of the popularity brought about via the Outlaw Country movement he helped create a few years earlier. ARE YOU READY FOR THE COUNTRY finds him retaining vestiges of that rough-and-ready sound, but simultaneously gravitating towards a more personal, introspective style. Backed by stalwarts Richie Albright (drums) and Ralph Mooney (pedal steel), he was still capable of the gritty country/rock amalgam that made him famous, as on the blistering title track, a HARVEST-era Neil Young tune. At the same time, "A Couple More Years" (penned by Shel Silverstein and Dr. Hook's Dennis Locorriere) and a cover of the Marshall Tucker Band hit "Can't You See" traffic in an intimate wistfulness that points towards the fuller emotional landscape Jennings would travel in the future.