Songs of Kristofferson
Artist: Kris Kristofferson
Community Score: 10.00

In the spring of 1977, Kris Kristofferson was at the apex of his film career, having recently co-starred in the box-office hit A Star Is Born and won a Golden Globe Award for it. At the same time, his recording career was on the wane; his two most recent solo albums, Who's to Bless...and Who's to Blame (1975) and Surreal Thing (1976) had failed... Read More

Greatest Hits
Artist: David Allan Coe

Featuring the hits "You Never Even Called Me By My Name," "Longhaired Redneck" and "Willie, Waylon and Me," this 10-track compilation of mid-'70s material from David Allan Coe is all you need to know about the ex-con turned country con-man/songwriter. He was one of country's more intriguing egos from the '70s. ~ Mark A. Humphrey, All Music Guide Read More

Family Album
Artist: David Allan Coe
Community Score: 10.00

1978's Family Album features one of the most bizarre covers in David Allan Coe's -- hell, anybody's -- catalog. He is dressed in a minister's black, flowing robe with an Amish hat, a little blonde girl in his lap, his two -- yes, two (of three at one time) -- wives standing behind him, and behind them, a black Lincoln Town Car and Coe's Silver... Read More

Tattoo
Artist: David Allan Coe
Community Score: 10.00

Tattoo was David Allan Coe's fifth Columbia album and displayed a return to form after the disappointing Rides Again. (There was also a return to plantation for an album called Texas Moon that's long been out of print and was most notable for its cover of Billy Joe Shaver's "Ride Me Down Easy.") Issued in 1977, it shows Coe sticking hard and... Read More

Rides Again
Artist: David Allan Coe
Community Score: 10.00

Even though Rides Again marks the first time David Allan Coe was allowed to use his own band on half of the album -- a major concession on the part of Columbia Records because he hit pay dirt a couple of times -- this stands as his most disappointingly inconsistent record of the 1970s. The last track on his previous album, "Dakota the Dancing... Read More

Stardust
Artist: Willie Nelson
Community Score: 5.00

At the height of outlaw country, Willie Nelson pulled off perhaps the riskiest move of the entire bunch. He set aside originals, country, and folk and recorded Stardust, a collection of pop standards produced by Booker T. Jones. Well, it's not entirely accurate to say that he put away country and folk, since these are highly idiosyncratic... Read More

The Troublemaker
Artist: Willie Nelson

Released in late 1976, at the height of Willie mania, The Troublemaker is Willie Nelson's first all-gospel album, but country gospel in his hands doesn't sound like traditional country gospel -- it's a Willie album, through and through, performed with the freewheeling Family as support. Consequently, it's every bit as wonderfully idiosyncratic... Read More

Red Headed Stranger
Artist: Willie Nelson
Community Score: 9.50

Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger perhaps is the strangest blockbuster country produced, a concept album about a preacher on the run after murdering his departed wife and her new lover, told entirely with brief song-poems and utterly minimal backing. It's defiantly anticommercial and it demands intense concentration -- all reasons why nobody... Read More

Third World Warrior
Artist: Kris Kristofferson
Greatest Hits - RCA
Artist: Waylon Jennings

RCA's nine-track 1979 Greatest Hits collection has since been supplemented by more thorough compilations -- most notably the double-disc sets Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line and RCA Country Legends -- but as a snapshot of Waylon at his outlaw peak, this serves quite well. And, make no mistake, this concentrates solely on the outlaw years,... Read More

The Outlaw
Artist: Tompall Glaser

Tompall Glaser is the great, unsung hero of the outlaw movement in country music that lasted from the middle '70s and into the 1980s. An interpretive singer of rare ability and great taste, he spent much of his time playing with his brothers in the Glaser Brothers before hanging out with Willie and Waylon and the boys. And as is typical with... Read More