As a label for a new genre, country-folk is no worse than its close cousins folk-rock and country-rock. But spot the difference in this hybrid name: no rock.
Yet it was clearly between a rock and a hard place that Waylon Jennings found himself in 1969. He had already moved on from country-pop standards to Dylan, and the public had approved his new direction, but good ole Chet Atkins, still running Nashville with a rod of iron, put Waylon together with brother (husbands) and sister (wives) vocal quartet The Kimberlys and house producer Danny Davis to make sweet music.
The result is a rather insipid affair, avoiding the worst excesses of the Nashville production line but falling far short of Waylon’s later output. The choice of songs leans more towards pop than either folk or country, and the output is patchy. There’s a good version of Jackie de Shannon’s Come Stay With Me that makes effective use of the contrast between Jennings’s gruff male voice and a female Kimberly’s sweeter tone but, two tracks later, a pretty feeble version of Joe South’s Games People Play conjures up no swamps at all (possibly a suburban garden pond, at best). Unique this record certainly is; but a classic? Not so sure about that.
