Still, one is left to wonder why, out of all the solo artists and bands who had public careers prior to 1970, but who attempted to carry on thereafter, Waylon Jennings is almost literally the only performer in any genre of popular music whose 1970's music could be said to be an enormous improvement over his work from the prior decade. Willie Nelson and Stevie Wonder, among possibly a few others, did their best known work in the 70's; however Willie Nelson did his best songwriting, and much of his best performing, in the decade prior to that (Stevie Wonder is a different case: he established himself as a performer in the '60's, but came into his own as a writer in the 70's -- he absolutely transformed himself during the '70's, but could not be said to have become 'better' in the sense that I am trying to define here).
In the 60's, Waylon Jennings shared a label, producer, and probably most of the same session musicians with Willie Nelson. Though Chet Atkins' productions were at times misguided in Willie Nelson's case, they were often brilliantly in tune with the dark compositions and stark musical delivery of the artist -- many of Willie Nelson's records on RCA from 1965-68 are, in my opinion, masterpieces, however overlooked they may remain. Atkins recognized the formality and delicacy of Nelson's songs, and gave that quality perfect expression in his arranging.
Waylon Jennings was never the writer that Nelson was; he was more an interpreter. Nashville session players from that era could be brilliant, especially with original material being done for the first time, but they were less reliable with music that was made well known by other artists, especially from outside the country field. Jennings had eclectic tastes: a series of live tapes from 1964, before he was nationally known (recently released commercially on CD, under the title "Live at JD's"), shows him equally at home with folk, country ballads, and rock and roll -- an unusual trait for this time period. With the 4-piece band on this early recording, he was brilliant. But when it came time to make recordings of his favorite Dylan, Beatles, Roy Orbison, and other cover songs at RCA under Chet Atkins' directorship, the results were usually dreadful, the arrangements, instrumental performances and Waylon's singing overwrought or stilted. Over the next few years, Waylon recorded some great singles, but usually second-rate albums.*
*If you wish to see the potential that lay within Waylon Jennings, there are some TV performances from the '60's on YouTube with Waylon's road band, the Waylors. These live clips are everything Waylon's studio records from that time were not.
The mannered presentation of much of the country music of the 1960's was advantageous to some singers (Tammy Wynette comes to mind), but completely unsuitable to Waylon Jennings. (At that time, only the California-based artists --Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and the other, less well-known performers in their orbit -- were allowed enough artistic independence to have a say in shaping their own sound on record). However, the 1970's unleashed cultural forces that made the musical dictatorship of 1960's Nashville no longer possible (or at any rate, not completely possible). A looseness, an openness was seeping into Pop music, as it was into the day-to-day lives of Americans. In society, norms could be and were questioned, even at times by the middle Americans who had always adhered to them so loyally. The Outsider was no longer a freak, a threat, but a figure almost to be admired, or at least tolerated. Conformity was a much weaker social unifier by the 70's than it ever was in the 60's. The 'Culture War' that social conservatives have kept on fighting all the way up to the present time had really been lost by the early years of the '70's-- the social values of the 1950's and earlier that had formed the world view of the older generation were everywhere undermined by the new relaxed, all-accepting sensibility of the 70's. What were seen as the misdeeds of the parents' and grandparents' generations undermined any right older people might have claimed to stop the young from pursuing their projects of individual fulfillment.
This new, open atmosphere, in which wayward habits no longer had to be kept hidden, in which an anti-authoritarian stance was often seen as honorable, was the ideal one for Waylon Jennings. He dyed his hair black and let it grow; he adopted an 'outlaw' clothing style. More significantly, his music became completely transformed. He began to interpret the new songwriters of the 70's, like Billy Joe Shaver and Steve Young. His songs became at once looser rhythmically and more focused and hard-driving -- no more stodgy rhythm sections and 'ooh' and 'aah' choruses. During this time he did the work for which we will remember him: 'Lonesome, On'ry and Mean', 'Amanda', the 'Honky Tonk Heroes' album, etc., etc.
Other than Waylon Jennings, I can't think of a single country music star from the 50's and 60's who did not suffer a decline (and often an embarrassing one) over the course of the 70's. A similar generalization would hold true for the larger pop world, as well**. The best rock and other pop artists of the 70's are those who could comfortably embrace the various cultural strains of that era: Elton John, Roxy Music, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, etc. -- nearly every one of these was a virtual non-entity during the previous decade.
The case of Waylon Jennings illustrates the role of the larger popular culture in alternately stifling, then encouraging pop music talent.
**unless you feel the 70's music of the individual Beatles, the Hollies, the Kinks, and so forth compares favorably to their '60's work.
