| Black on Black | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | February 1982 | |||
| Recorded | Moman's Studio, Nashville | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 29:16 | |||
| Label | RCA Victor | |||
| Producer | Chips Moman | |||
| Waylon Jennings chronology | ||||
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| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    link |
Black on Black is a studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1982.
By 1981, Jennings' excessive lifestyle had caught up to him financially. Despite a string of #1 albums and sellout concerts, the overhead of keeping his show on the road combined with his cocaine habit had drained nearly all of his resources. In the audio version of his autobiography Waylon, he admitted to spending up to $1,500 a day on the drug and also confessed to being out of touch with the personnel on his tours:
In the spring of 1981, Jennings, drummer Richie Albright, and financial advisor Bill Robinson went over the singer's business affairs at a hotel in Los Angeles and found that he owed more than two million dollars and was over $800,000 overdrawn to the bank. [1] Jennings slowly crawled out of debt by trimming down his organization and touring heavily, including a lucrative engagement in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, Jennings' money woes came at a time when his health and creativity were flagging primarily due to his continued reliance on cocaine.
Jennings reunited with Chips Moman for Black on Black, recording the album at Moman's studio in Nashville. Jennings and Moman had previously collaborated on one of the singers biggest LPs, 1977's Ol' Waylon , and the producer had co-written what turned out to be the biggest single of Jennings' career, "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)." Moman had also just produced the phenomenally successful Willie Nelson album Always on My Mind . On Ol' Waylon, Moman had introduced a slicker sound without sacrificing the grit that was at the heart of Jennings' music, but Black on Black features a different sound than most Jennings albums of the period, prominently including electric pianos and backing vocals, the latter performed primarily by Jennings' wife, Jessi Colter. In his AllMusic review of Black on Black, Thom Jurek criticizes the over-production and Moman in particular:
The album's big hit was "Just to Satisfy You," recorded as a duet with Willie Nelson. The song had originally been a regional hit for Jennings in Arizona in 1964 and helped bring him to the attention of RCA. Jennings had also recorded the song as the title track for a 1969 LP. Although Jennings remained a strong presence on the country charts at this time, Nelson had eclipsed him - and just about everybody else in country music - and it was likely due to his name that the song became a #1 hit, rather than any appeal of the flagging outlaw country movement. The album would also produce two other Top 5 singles, both written by Jennings: "Shine," which reached #4, and "Women Do Know How to Carry On," which topped out at #5. The song "Shine" appears in the 1981 film The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper . As on his most recent LPs, Jennings relied on well known covers to round out the album, including Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" (which he had recorded on his 1968 album Jewels ) and Hank Williams' "Honky Tonk Blues." Perhaps the album's most moving performance is Jennings' rendition of "Song for the Life," originally recorded by Rodney Crowell, who also composed the tune. Thom Jurek praises the song: "The acoustic piano and electric guitar fills, showcased by a gorgeous acoustic solo, would have been a stunning end to this record, but it was not to be - even if it is the strongest thing here and leaves Crowell's own version in the dust." Instead, the album closes with the Bobby Emmons' brazen "Get Naked With Me," which Jurek deems "a stupid song in the old, tired outlaw frame." Emmons and Moman, who wrote "Luckenbach, Texas," contribute two songs to Black on Black: "May I Borrow Some Sugar from You" and "(We Made It as Lovers) We Just Couldn't Make It as Friends."
Despite mixed reviews, Black on Black was another commercial success for Jennings, reaching #3 on the Billboard country albums chart and making the Top 40 on the pop albums chart. Amazon.com: "From the dark cover on down, the sound here was reflective of the time, using production methods that tried to make the studio experience sound more like the live experience...in this case, with mixed results."
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Women Do Know How to Carry On" | Bobby Emmons, Waylon Jennings | 3:17 |
| 2. | "Honky Tonk Blues" | Hank Williams | 2:42 |
| 3. | "Just to Satisfy You" | Don Bowman, Jennings | 2:48 |
| 4. | "(We Made It as Lovers) We Just Couldn't Make It as Friends" | Emmons, Chips Moman | 2:12 |
| 5. | "Shine" | Jennings | 2:49 |
| 6. | "Folsom Prison Blues" | Johnny Cash | 2:40 |
| 7. | "Gonna Write a Letter" | Paul Kennerley | 2:35 |
| 8. | "May I Borrow Some Sugar from You" | Emmons, Moman | 3:21 |
| 9. | "Song for the Life" | Rodney Crowell | 3:39 |
| 10. | "Get Naked With Me" | Emmons | 3:13 |
Weekly charts
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Lincoln Wayne "Chips" Moman was an American record producer, guitarist, and songwriter. He is known for working in R&B, pop music and country music, operating American Sound Studios and producing hit albums like Elvis Presley's 1969 From Elvis in Memphis and the 1985 debut album for The Highwaymen. Moman won a Grammy Award for co-writing "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song", a 1975 hit for B.J. Thomas.
Mirriam Rebecca Joan Johnson, known professionally as Jessi Colter, is an American country singer who is best known for her collaborations with her husband, country musician Waylon Jennings, and for her 1975 crossover hit "I'm Not Lisa".
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It's Only Rock & Roll is an album by Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Victor in 1983.
Live from Austin, TX is an album by Waylon Jennings, released on New West Records in 2006. As part of New West's series of albums featuring individual artists' performances on Austin City Limits, it was recorded on April 1, 1989, several months after the release of Full Circle, Jennings' last album for MCA Records, and a year before the singer's move to Epic Records would yield The Eagle. The songs themselves primarily include popular selections from Jennings' own catalog: "I'm a Ramblin' Man", "America", "Theme from The Dukes of Hazzard ", "Luckenbach, Texas " and "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys", among others. The concert was also released in video format and in 2007, the DVD of Live from Austin, TX was certified gold by the RIAA.
Nashville Rebel is a box set by Waylon Jennings, released on RCA Nashville through Legacy Recordings in 2006. According to Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, it is "the first comprehensive, multi-label Waylon Jennings retrospective ever assembled," comprising ninety-two songs recorded between 1958 and 1994, with selections from the majority of the singer's recording career. The first track of the box set is the Buddy Holly-produced "Jole Blon," released in 1958, while the last is "I Do Believe," a song produced by Don Was that was included on The Highwaymen's 1995 release, The Road Goes on Forever. The other material on the box set covers Jennings' career chronologically, with songs ranging from his years on RCA's roster to later compositions from his short-lived stay at Epic Records; it ignores, however, the tracks from Jennings albums released on independent labels. The majority of the singer's charting singles are included in the package, as are collaborations such as "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" with Willie Nelson and "Highwayman" with The Highwaymen. A notable addition is the previously unreleased "The Greatest Cowboy of Them All," a 1978 duet with Johnny Cash which was later recorded by Cash alone for A Believer Sings the Truth (1979) and The Mystery of Life (1991); two others, "It's Sure Been Fun" and "People in Dallas Got Hair," had never been released in the United States. Nashville Rebel was released on four CDs, with a 140-page booklet and liner notes by Rich Kienzle and Lenny Kaye.
"Luckenbach, Texas " is a song recorded by American country music artist Waylon Jennings. It was released in April 1977 as the first single from the album Ol' Waylon. It was written by Chips Moman and Bobby Emmons.
Always on My Mind is the 27th studio album by country singer Willie Nelson. It was the Billboard number one country album of the year for 1982, and stayed 253 weeks on the Billboard Top Country Albums charts, peaking at number one for a total of 22 weeks, as well as spending 99 weeks on the Billboard 200 for all albums, peaking at number two for 3 weeks.
"The Wurlitzer Prize (I Don't Want to Get Over You)" is a song written by Chips Moman and Bobby Emmons, and recorded by American country music artist Waylon Jennings. It was released in September 1977 as the first single from the album Waylon & Willie. The song was Jennings' sixth number one on the country charts. The single spent two weeks at the top and a total of eleven weeks on the chart. It was later covered by Kacey Musgraves for a tribute show to Jennings, the live album of which was released in 2017.
Bobby Gene Emmons was an American keyboard player and songwriter. He was an active session musician in Memphis, Tennessee, and was the keyboardist of The Memphis Boys, playing keyboards on tracks by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson and many others from the 1950s onward. His compositions included "Luckenbach, Texas ", written with Chips Moman and recorded by Waylon Jennings; and "Love Me Like You Used To", co-written with Paul Davis and recorded by both Johnny Cash and Tanya Tucker.