Personnel: Waylon Jennings (vocals, guitar); Waylon Jennings; Graham Nash, Rance Wasson (vocals); Gordon Payne (guitar, background vocals); John Leslie Hug, John Hug (guitar); Ronald Folsom, Thomas Buffum, Charles Veal, Billy Graham , Karen Jones (violin); Bill Graham (fiddle); Denyse Buffum (viola); Julianna Buffum (cello); Jim Gordon (saxophone, horns); Mackinley Johnson (horns); Don Robertson (keyboards); Barny Robertson (vocals, piano, background vocals); Carter Robertson (vocals, background vocals); Ralph Mooney (guitar, steel guitar, dobro); Ritchie Albright (guitar, drums); Mack Johnson (trumpet); Maurice Spears (trombone, horns); Sherman Hayes (bass guitar, background vocals); Duke Goff (bass guitar).
Liner Note Author: Rich Kienzle.
Recording information: Sound Labs Studio, Hollywood, CA (03/22/1976-04/21/1976).
Photographer: Chuck White .
Arrangers: Waylon Jennings; Ken Mansfield.
In 1977, Waylon Jennings was still at the peak of the popularity brought about via the Outlaw Country movement he helped create a few years earlier. ARE YOU READY FOR THE COUNTRY finds him retaining vestiges of that rough-and-ready sound, but simultaneously gravitating towards a more personal, introspective style. Backed by stalwarts Richie Albright (drums) and Ralph Mooney (pedal steel), he was still capable of the gritty country/rock amalgam that made him famous, as on the blistering title track, a HARVEST-era Neil Young tune. At the same time, "A Couple More Years" (penned by Shel Silverstein and Dr. Hook's Dennis Locorriere) and a cover of the Marshall Tucker Band hit "Can't You See" traffic in an intimate wistfulness that points towards the fuller emotional landscape Jennings would travel in the future. minimize