Jamey Johnson Joins Willie Nelson and Kenny Chesney In Farm Aid Lineup

Did you have any hesitation about sharing all that darkness with the people who are going to hear the album?
You always do. Believe it or not, I’m a pretty private guy. I don’t really welcome that many people into my direct situation. But when you go to write a song, you owe it to your listener to give them complete honesty, to tell them the full story in a way they can hear it, understand it and apply it to their life. If you can’t do that, it’s like peeing in your pants: You might get a warm feeling, but nobody else really cares to know. [Laughs.] I’m putting one out there to the guy or girl sitting at the end of the bar who doesn’t understand the feeling they’ve got going on because somebody left ‘em. I want to let those people know it’s going to be all right. Hell, I’m laughing about it already.

The album features relatively faithful, if edgier, renditions of Jennings standards like Neil Young’s “Are You Ready for the Country,” Rodney Crowell’s “Ain’t Livin’ Long Like This,” and Jennings’ own “Waymore’s Blues”; a stirring ballad reworking of “Outlaw Sh*t” (previously released as “Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand”), a cover of Cream’s “White Room,” as well as the never-released, Waylon-penned “I Found the Body.”

Merle shuffled into the studio, bleary-eyed and more than a little spaced-out. Willie handed him the lyrics he’d scribbled on a brown paper bag. Merle ran through the vocals with Willie as they both got a feel for the song about a Mexican bandit and his inscrutable friend, both of them living outside the law. The tape rolled. Merle nailed his vocal in one take and went back to his bus to sleep. The next morning, he found Willie on the golf course and asked if he could do another vocal of the song they’d recorded a few hours earlier.

Willie laughed and shook his head. “Hell, the tapes’ already on the way to New York.”