When Waylon Jennings hooked up with songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, he found the perfect author for his obsessions, his fascinations, and his very image. Waylon had always been looking, perhaps unintentionally, for a common ground between country and rock, and Shaver's songs -- sketching an outlaw stance with near defiance and borrowing rock attitude to create the hardest country tunes imaginable -- were perfect. On his previous album, Waylon had sung that "ladies love outlaws," ...   [ read more ]

CD $7.59

Bob Gallion never really made much of an impression on the country charts or on country history, but as Bear Family's 2000 compilation Out of a Honky Tonk proves, he didn't deserve to be ignored. He didn't really have any song that stood out from the pack -- perhaps that's the reason why he couldn't score a real hit while he was recording for MGM in the late '60s -- but he was a solid performer with a strong voice in the best honky tonk tradition. His 1956 single "Hey, Mr. Bartender" is an o...   [ read more ]

CD $21.83

Razor & Tie's 1996 collection Honky Tonk Amnesia: The Hard Country Sound of Moe Bandy is a superb summary of Bandy's peak as a hitmaker in the '70s and '80s, containing no less than 20 tracks, all of them major hits. Since his run at the top of the charts was lengthy, encompassing a number of big duets with both Janie Fricke and Joe Stampley, not everything is here. The biggest absences are these duets, with solo singles like "Here I Am Drunk Again" and "Cowboys Ain't Supposed to Cry" ...   [ read more ]

CD $17.08