This Time | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | July 1974 | |||
Recorded | 1973 | |||
Studio | Glaser Sound (Nashville, Tennessee) | |||
Genre | Outlaw Country | |||
Length | 29:02 | |||
Label | RCA Victor | |||
Producer |
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Waylon Jennings chronology | ||||
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Singles from This Time | ||||
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This Time is a studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1974, at the peak of the outlaw country movement. It was produced by Jennings and Willie Nelson.
Although Jennings had won artistic autonomy from RCA in 1972, giving him the freedom to produce his own records, he was still irritated by RCA executives, who kept a close eye on his recording sessions at RCA Victor Studios and had even delayed the release of his 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes . [1] In his autobiography, Jennings wrote that although he had agreed to record in their studios, the RCA engineers were constantly calling upstairs to executive Jerry Bradley, keeping him aware of everything Jennings did. Fed up with the aggravation, Jennings decided to record his next album at Tompall Glaser's Glaser Sound recording studio at 916 Nineteenth Avenue South, nicknamed "Hillbilly Central," with Willie Nelson co-producing. Glaser, a Nashville veteran who had achieved fame with the Glaser Brothers, had co-produced Honky Tonk Heroes, a touchstone of the outlaw country movement. In his book Outlaw: Waylon, Willie, Kris, and the Renegades of Nashville, author Michael Striessguth describes the atmosphere at the studio, which contrasted sharply with RCA's strict recording traditions:
According to Streissguth, the first song Jennings recorded at Glaser's studio in October 1973 was J.J. Cale's "Louisiana Women" with Kyle Lehning engineering. Lehning, who would achieve fame in the 1980s producing albums for Randy Travis, contributed Wurlitzer electric piano to the Cale song and the trumpet part to "Heaven and Hell." "You just can't believe how different everything sounded when he moved from RCA," Glaser explained in the 2003 documentary Beyond Nashville. "The bottom was fat and big again...You could hear the drum, it wasn't a little tick in the back. It was marvellous." Jennings agreed, stating, "There was a freedom there that I didn't have any place else. Both of us could experiment...It was a fraternity, and Nashville was our college town." [2]
Overall, This Time has a more laid-back feel than its defiant predecessor. Four of the twelve songs on the LP were written by Nelson and included on his Phases and Stages concept album, which was released earlier that same year. Nelson also sang on "Heaven and Hell" and contributed guitar to the album. The title track became Jennings' first chart-topping smash in June 1974. In the authorized video biography Renegade Outlaw Legend, the singer revealed, "I wrote that song five years before and whoever was producing me then at RCA said it was no good. I was going through some old tapes and happened to find it." Jennings added that he wanted to throw the song away but was persuaded not to by drummer Ritchie Albright. The album also marked the first time Jennings recorded a song written by Miriam Eddy, the ex-wife of producer Duane Eddy, who later changed her name to Jessi Colter and became Waylon's wife. Playing up to his outlaw personae, Jennings recorded the aptly titled "Slow Movin' Outlaw" and also included Texan songwriter Billy Joe Shaver's "Slow Rollin' Low."
This Time was reissued in 1999 with five bonus tracks featuring several songs famously sung by Buddy Holly. Produced by Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Duane Eddy, these tracks feature The Crickets, Holly's backing band, as musicians and backing vocalists.
This Time peaked at #4 on the Billboard country albums chart, his best showing there since 1967. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic writes, "It's not that the monochromaticity makes it a lesser affair than its predecessor, yet the whole thing does feel a bit reserved and not quite as overpowering as a sequel to Honky Tonk Heroes should be. Still, it's a first-rate record - perhaps not a classic, but a subdued, understated album unlike anything in his catalog."
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Rolling Stone | (not rated) link |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
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1. | "This Time" | Waylon Jennings | 2:25 |
2. | "Louisiana Women" | J.J. Cale | 4:04 |
3. | "Pick Up the Tempo" | Willie Nelson | 2:34 |
4. | "Slow Rollin' Low" | Billy Joe Shaver | 2:46 |
5. | "Heaven or Hell" | Nelson | 1:40 |
6. | "It's Not Supposed to Be That Way" | Nelson | 3:30 |
7. | "Slow Movin' Outlaw" | Dee Moeller | 3:41 |
8. | "Mona" | Jessi Colter | 2:49 |
9. | "Walkin'" | Nelson | 2:30 |
10. | "If You Could Touch Her at All" | Lee Clayton | 3:03 |
Weekly charts
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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.
Outlaw country is a subgenre of American country music created by a small group of iconoclastic 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.
Thomas Paul "Tompall" Glaser was an American country singer who was a key figure in the 1970s outlaw country movement.
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Honky Tonk Heroes is a country music album by Waylon Jennings, released in 1973 on RCA Victor. With the exception of the final track on the album, "We Had It All", all of the songs on the album were written or co-written by Billy Joe Shaver. The album is considered an important piece in the development of the outlaw sub-genre in country music as it revived the honky tonk music of Nashville and added elements of rock and roll to it.
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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.
Leather and Lace is a duet album by Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, released on RCA Records in 1981.
Waylon Live is a live album by Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1976.
Ol' Waylon is a studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings. It was released on RCA Victor in 1977. It eventually became one of Jennings' highest-selling albums, due in no small part to the phenomenal success of the chart-topping "Luckenbach, Texas ." It was also the singer's fourth solo album in a row to reach the top of the country charts, remaining there for thirteen weeks and becoming country music's first platinum album by any single solo artist.
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