Track Listing

1. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys - Waylon Jennings
2. Honky Tonk Heroes - Waylon Jennings
3. I'm Looking for Blue Eyes - Jessi Colter
4. You Mean to Say - Jessi Colter
5. Suspicious Minds - Jessi Colter, Waylon Jennings
6. Good Hearted Woman [Live][Version] - Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson
7. Heaven or Hell - Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson
8. Me and Paul - Willie Nelson
9. Yesterday's Wine - Willie Nelson
10. T for Texas (Blue Yodel No. 1) - Tompall Glaser
11. Put Another Log on the Fire (Male Chauvinist National Anthem) - Tompall Glaser
12. Slow Movin' Outlaw - Waylon Jennings
13. I'm a Ramblin' Man - Waylon Jennings
14. If She's Where You Like Livin' (You Won't Feel at Home With Me) - Jessi Colter
15. It's Not Easy - Jessi Colter
16. Why You Been Gone So Long - Jessi Colter
17. Under Your Spell Again - Jessi Colter, Waylon Jennings
18. I Ain't the One - Jessi Colter, Waylon Jennings
19. You Left Me a Long, Long Time Ago - Willie Nelson
20. Healing Hands of Time - Willie Nelson
21. Nowhere Road [#] - Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #993 in Music
• Brand: RCA
• Released on: 1996-04-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Extra tracks
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com
Less successful when it's sentimental (Waylon Jennings' "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys") than when it's wry (Willie Nelson's myth-puncturing "Me and Paul"), this cash-in compilation of previously released cuts was just in time to grab the first platinum record ever awarded a country album. It's not bad, but both Jennings' contemporaneous Dreaming My Dreams and Nelson's Red Headed Stranger are more nuanced tastes of the good-bad-but-not-evil-ol'-boy lifestyle. (Not to mention much of Tompall Glaser's own Outlaw compilation.) This 1996 CD reissue adds nine more tracks from the era as well as a new Jennings-and-Nelson version of Steve Earle's "Nowhere Road." --Rickey Wright

Customer Reviews

Credit where credit is due
WANTED! THE OUTLAWS has been named the most influential country CD of all time (I'm not making that up, I just forget where I heard it). Listen to it, and understand why--every song on here, even the Waylon/Jessi version of "Suspicious Minds"--reeks of country music. This is the album--with a few tweaks, I believe--that spawned the music you listen to today. What self-respecting modern-day singer/songwriter doesn't count Willie and Waylon as influences (and most, if you question them enough, will spurt out Jessi Colter's name as well).

What makes this CD so delictable, aside from it's impressive talent credits (add in Tompall Glaser, who--through a most unfortunate twist of fate--has had his fame pale next to his partners in crime) and superb songwriting? Maybe it's its blend of styles. A pure, solid country backbone, with a rock n roll sex appeal. A honky-tonk drinkin attitude, with a love-ballad aftertaste. Waylon Jennings growls out the lyrics to Billy Joe Shaver's "Honky Tonk Heroes" with experience and subtle dignity. Jessi Coulter stands up for herself in the face of heartbreak in her own "You Mean to Say." Willie Nelson laments and celebrates his travels in "Me and Paul." Tompall Glaser (who only has two tracks here) gets bluesy on Jimmy Rodger's ramblin "T for Texas", and belts out wry irony in the Shel Silverstein ("A Boy Named Sue")-penned "Put Another Log on the Fire."

WANTED! THE OUTLAWS. If you haven't heard it yet, you must. Along with a few other CD's (Willie's RED-HEADED STRANGER and Johnny Cash's LIVE AT FOLSOM PRISON come immediately to mind), this album helped establish country music as cool. Not that country's status changed these guys (and gal) any: they continued to be outlaws long after this recording became a smash, and are still outlaws today, if only in memory. A tribute to honky tonks and never-ending love, WANTED! THE OUTLAWS is an absolutely timeless piece of true, uninhibited music.

Country and Western Got Cool Here
Outlaws are often the stuff of country and western songs.

In the annals of popular music, this CD is a bit of an outlaws tale. After this album came out in the mid 1970's, Nashville's total dominance of Country & Western was ended. Austin Texas, a sleepy small town in the middle of the Lone Star State, became a rival center for country, blues, rock, and other music genres.

Willie & Waylon contribute most of the sound, style, and songs here. Perhaps this is to be expected, since they were already "names" at the time this CD was originally released: Waylon as a performer, Willie as a songwriter. But Jessi Colter has a great voice, and Tompall Glaser provides great instumental accompaniment as the rhythm section.

Willie and Waylon were pure gold after this, and while Jessi Colter & Tompall Glaser were not heard from much afterward, they do live on here.

Waylon Jennings had several big singles and successful concert tours after he and Willie Nelson went their separate ways. But even so, his biggest applause came when he did the tunes from this CD. Sadly, Waylon Jennings declined and was in ill health during most of the 1990's. Willie Nelson has managed to sustain a career full of comebacks -- the IRS, marijuana arrests, and an occasional flop album have all failed to stop him from becoming an (admittedly unlikely) popular folk-hero.

Like "The Weavers at Carnegie hall", which is often credited with launching a folk music revival, and the early Beatles & Stones albums which generated interested in anything that came from England, this album is often credited with the birth of "alt Country".

Because of its maverick style and content (more radical at the time than today), it has retained or obtained a status that few country and western CD's ever do: IT'S COOL.

a childhood memory, an adult treasure
I remember back in the late 70's sitting in the back of my parents car on numerous roadtrips across Texas listening to this album. Now even though I was into rock and roll at the time, this album still held my attention on those long trips. I bought my own copy a few weeks ago when I heard that Waylon had passed to that great honky tonk in the sky. Man what a great album! My boyhood memories have been coming back to me with each listen. There is not a weak track on this record, with many of them finding their way to Willie and Waylons greatest hits albums. As mentioned by earlier reviewers, Jesse Colter is the hidden gem of this album. The album includes ten new tracks that did not make the original cut, but are all strong. "Why you been gone so long" by Jesse is really outstanding. Finally, the newest track "Nowhere Road" is a Steve Earle song recorded in 1996 by Willie and Waylon (Earle produced it). All I can say is this song should be playing on country radio right now, as its better that 99.9% of all the current country tunes. Do yourself a favor and add this album to your collection. Put it on, sit back and listen, you might be able to imagine what the Austin outlaw country scene was like in the late 70's!