"Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" | ||||
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Single by Waylon Jennings | ||||
from the album Dreaming My Dreams | ||||
B-side | "Bob Wills Is Still the King" | |||
Released | August 1975 | |||
Recorded | September 2, 1974 [1] | |||
Genre | Outlaw country [2] | |||
Length | 3:02 | |||
Label | RCA Nashville | |||
Songwriter(s) | Waylon Jennings | |||
Producer(s) |
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Waylon Jennings singles chronology | ||||
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"Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Waylon Jennings. It was released in August 1975 as the first single from the album Dreaming My Dreams . The song was Jennings' third number one on the country chart as a solo artist, and it remained at number one for one week and spent a total of sixteen weeks on the country charts. [3] The song was one of many major hits for Jennings, and became an anthem of the outlaw country movement, as well as the wider genre.
The B-side to "Are You Sure ..." was "Bob Wills is Still the King", a tribute to the music of Wills. Although it never charted on its own, "Bob Wills ... " gained airplay and continues to be a staple at classic country radio stations.
Jennings, one of the driving forces of the outlaw country movement, released Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way at the height of the movement's success. The song, penned by Jennings on the back of an envelope, captured the singer's frustration with the direction country music had taken over the previous two decades, largely as a result of the control country record labels held over their artists, and the resultant "Nashville sound".
The song pays homage to the influence of country music legend Hank Williams Sr. on the genre, and criticizes the glitz that had come to characterize top-selling country artists in the 1970s, through references to "rhinestone suits" and "new shiny cars"; as well as the stagnant, uninspired sound that resulted from the commercially-focused Nashville producers: "Lord it's the same old tune, fiddle and guitar; Where do we take it from here?" [4]
The song's lyrics also refer to the recording industry's treatment of artists, which included relentless touring schedules leading to singers such as Jennings relying heavily on amphetamines and other drugs: "Ten years on the road making one night stands, speeding my young life away". The end of each verse rhetorically calls into question whether Hank Williams made music this way: "Tell me one more time, just so's I'll understand: are you sure Hank done it this way? Did ol' Hank really do it this way?"
At a concert in 1975, in the introduction to the song, Jennings remarked: "I wrote this song in ten minutes; took me ten years to think it up, though", referencing his decade-long struggle to fight for artistic control and challenge the Nashville establishment.
Rolling Stone labelled it the "closest things outlaw country has to a mission statement". [5]
Chart (1975) | Peak position |
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US Hot Country Songs ( Billboard ) [6] | 1 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [7] | 60 |
Canadian RPM Country Tracks | 21 |
Chart (2011) | Peak position |
---|---|
US Hot Country Songs ( Billboard ) [8] | 53 |
Country band Alabama covered the song in 2010 for the Waylon Jennings tribute album, The Music Inside: A Collaboration Dedicated to Waylon Jennings, Volume One, which was released on February 8, 2011. Alabama's version was released as a single on December 13, 2010, via The Valory Music Co.
Waylon Arnold Jennings was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He is considered one of the pioneers of the outlaw movement in country music.
Johnny Paycheck was an American country music singer and Grand Ole Opry member notable for recording the David Allan Coe song "Take This Job and Shove It". He achieved his greatest success in the 1970s as a force in country music's "outlaw movement" popularized by artists Hank Williams Jr., Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, and Merle Haggard. In 1980, Paycheck appeared on the PBS music program Austin City Limits, though in the ensuing decade, his music career slowed due to drug, alcohol, and legal problems. He served a prison sentence in the early 1990s, and his declining health effectively ended his career in early 2000.
Outlaw country is a subgenre of American country music created by a small group of artists active in the 1970s and early 1980s, known collectively as the outlaw movement, who fought for and won their creative freedom outside of the Nashville establishment that dictated the sound of most country music of the era. Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Paycheck, and David Allan Coe were among the movement's most commercially successful members.
Waylon Albright "Shooter" Jennings is an American musician and record producer. He is the son of country singers Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter. In a career spanning three decades, Jennings has explored a variety of musical genres.
Lonesome, On'ry and Mean is a studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1973. It was, after Good Hearted Woman and Ladies Love Outlaws, the third in a series of albums which were to establish Jennings as one of the most prominent representatives of the outlaw country movement. Like its successor, Honky Tonk Heroes, the album is considered an important milestone in the history of country music. It represented the first of Jennings' works produced and recorded by himself, following his fight for artistic freedom against the constraints of the Nashville recording establishment.
Dreaming My Dreams is the twenty-second studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings. The album was co-produced with Jack Clement and recorded at Glaser Sound Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, between February and July 1974.
Wanted! The Outlaws is a compilation album by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser, released by RCA Records in 1976. The album consists of previously released material with four new songs. Released to capitalize on the new outlaw country movement, Wanted! The Outlaws earned its place in music history by becoming the first country album to be platinum-certified, reaching sales of one million.
Greatest Hits is a compilation album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released in 1979 by RCA Records.
Are You Ready for the Country is a studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1976.
Waylon Live is a live album by Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1976.
Black on Black is a studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1982.
Mark Nelson Chesnutt is an American country music singer and songwriter. Between 1990 and 1999, he had his greatest chart success recording for Universal Music Group Nashville's MCA and Decca branches, with a total of eight albums between those two labels. During this timespan, Chesnutt also charted twenty top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, of which eight reached number one: "Brother Jukebox", "I'll Think of Something", "It Sure Is Monday", "Almost Goodbye", "I Just Wanted You to Know", "Gonna Get a Life", "It's a Little Too Late", and a cover of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing". His first three albums for MCA along with a 1996 Greatest Hits package issued on Decca are all certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); 1994's What a Way to Live, also issued on Decca, is certified gold. After a self-titled album in 2002 on Columbia Records, Chesnutt has continued to record predominantly on independent labels.
"Good Hearted Woman" is a song written by American country music singers Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.
"Honky Tonkin'" is a 1947 country music song, written and recorded by Hank Williams. His song went to #14 on the Billboard country music chart in 1948. In 1982, it became the sixth chart topping single for Williams' son, Hank Williams Jr.
"Don't You Think This Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out of Hand" is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Waylon Jennings. It first released in October 1978 as the second single from his album I've Always Been Crazy. The song peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. It also reached number 1 on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada. Waylon redid the song specifically as well as several others in a session in the mid-1990s in a much slower and more regretful tone towards his previous actions dubbing it 'Outlaw Shit' and it would be released on the 2008 album Waylon Forever, Waylon's first posthumous studio album release.
"Can't You See" is a song written by Toy Caldwell of The Marshall Tucker Band. The song was originally recorded by the band on their 1973 debut album, The Marshall Tucker Band, and released as the album's first single. Record World called it "a strong rhythm item that continually builds and builds." A live version was released in 1977 and peaked at number 75 on the Billboard Hot 100. Cover versions of "Can't You See" have charted for Waylon Jennings and the Zac Brown Band with Kid Rock (2010).
"A Mansion on the Hill" is a song written by Hank Williams and Fred Rose and originally recorded by Williams on MGM Records. It peaked at No. 12 on the Most Played Jukebox Folk Records chart in March 1949.
"Bob Wills Is Still the King" is a song written and performed by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, as a tribute of sorts to the Western swing icon Bob Wills.
Son of the South is an album released by country musician David Allan Coe. It was released in 1986 on Columbia.
Like the best outlaw country, "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" looks backwards and forwards simultaneously...