Don't Think Twice (album) explained

Don't Think Twice
Type:Album
Artist:Waylon Jennings
Cover:WaylonJenningsDontThinkTwice.jpg
Released:March 1970
Recorded:April 1964 – January 1965[1]
Genre:Country
Label:A&M
Prev Title:Waylon
Prev Year:1970
Next Title:The Best of Waylon Jennings
Next Year:1970

Don't Think Twice is a studio album by American country music artist Waylon Jennings, released in 1970 on A&M Records. It consists of previously issued singles and a few unreleased recordings from his days at A&M during 1963-65. The title track, as well as "I Don't Believe You" are cover versions of Bob Dylan songs. Several of the other songs on the album are standards. "Just to Satisfy You", first recorded by Jennings in 1964, was re-recorded and issued on the 1969 RCA Victor Jennings album Just to Satisfy You.

Background

By 1970, Waylon Jennings was on a steady but slow path to national prominence as a performer. The previous year, Decca (later MCA, now Universal Music) had purchased the rights to the "JD's" album from Jim Musil, and reissued ten of the album's twelve songs as "Waylon Jennings", on the budget Vocalion label.

Despite leaving A&M for RCA in 1965, Waylon remained on good terms with Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. A&M wanted to capitalize on Waylon's time with them, and set about putting together the album. Engineer Bernie Grundman was given the task of preparing the album, and rather than simply transferring the existing mixes onto LP, he created new mixes of some of the previously-issued songs and brought others recorded just prior to Waylon's departure for RCA out of the vault.[2]

As a result, there are substantial musical differences between the single versions of "Just To Satisfy You", "The Real House of the Rising Sun", "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)", and "Four Strong Winds" and the versions on this album.

Reissues

In 1978, German reissue label Bear Family obtained reissue rights to the album. Instead of a straight reissue, Bear Family left off the title track, but added "Love Denied" and "Rave On", both sides of Waylon's first A&M single, and never before issued on any album. The reconfigured album, now titled "Rave On", was released in West Germany only, but available as an import in other countries. [3]

Sixteen years later, A&M in Germany reissued the 1970 album on CD as "Don't Think Twice: The A&M Sessions". However, no photographs of Waylon used, though the booklet notes were in English. In 1999, Bear Family reissued the album, as well as other songs recorded for A&M as part of "The Journey: Destiny's Child" box set, which covered Waylon's career from 1959 to 1968.

Track listing

  1. "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" (Bob Dylan) – 3:00
  2. "River Boy" (Fred Carter Jr.) – 2:30
  3. "Twelfth of Never" (Jerry Livingston, Paul Francis Webster) – 2:24
  4. "The Race Is On" (Don Rollins) – 2:30
  5. "Stepping Stone" (Smokey Stover) – 1:51
  6. "The Real House of the Rising Sun" (Traditional) – 3:35
  7. "Just to Satisfy You" (Don Bowman, Waylon Jennings) – 2:21
  8. "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" (Paul Campbell, Joel Newman) – 2:26
  9. "Unchained Melody" (Alex North, Hy Zaret) – 3:12
  10. "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" (Dylan) – 4:00
  11. "Four Strong Winds" (Ian Tyson) – 2:54

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Praguefrank's Country Discography 2: Waylon Jennings, part 1 . 12 August 2018 .
  2. Web site: Top Picks with Bernie Grundman . . November 2021 .
  3. https://www.discogs.com/release/4175841-Waylon-Jennings-Rave-On