Wanted! The Outlaws

Recordings[edit]

Although many of the songs included on Wanted: The Outlaws were several years old and featured a plethora of producers, the unifying outlaw theme gave the album a cohesion and freshness it might have otherwise lacked. Although the album was predominately upbeat, it begins with the brooding "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," which laments the loneliness of outlaw life as much as it celebrates the freedom of it. In the audio version of his autobiography, Jennings confessed, "It was an oddly downbeat way to start an album, but it seemed to sum up the frontier loneliness that often came hand-in-hand with our ideas of rugged individualism." Nelson would take the song to #1 in 1980 when it appeared on the soundtrack to The Electric Horseman. Jennings also sings Billy Joe Shavers's "Honky Tonk Heroes," the title cut from his classic 1973 LP about "lovable losers" and "no account boozers" who "danced holes in (their) shoes." Nostalgic themes are also found in Nelson's "Yesterday's Wine," the title track from his 1971 concept album of the same name. Nelson's other solo track, "Me and Paul," which also appeared on the Yesterday's Wine album, seemed to echo the outlaw ethos with its tales of suspicious cops, drug busts and lines like, "We'd come to play and not just for the ride." In keeping with the cowboy theme, Glaser tips his hat to Jimmie Rodgers on a rousing version of "T For Texas" and provides some comic relief with the Shel Silverstein nugget "Put Another Log on the Fire." Contrasting with these songs, Colter's selections, including "I'm Looking For Blue Eyes" and "You Mean to Say," address themes of loneliness and heartbreak. Jennings' and Colter's duet on "Suspicious Minds" had originally been released in 1970; at that time the song peaked at #25 on the Billboard country singles chart but, upon its rerelease in 1976, shot up to #2.


The biggest hit single from the album was the Jennings-Nelson duet of "Good Hearted Woman"; it peaked at number one on Billboard's Hot Country Singles and at number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also awarded with the Single of the Year award by the Country Music Association. Largely written by Jennings, it had served as the title track of his 1972 album and had also been recorded by Nelson for his LP The Words Don't Fit the Picture, also released that same year. According to Joe Nick Patoski's 2008 memoir Willie Nelson, the live performance of "Good Hearted Woman" on Wanted: The Outlaws was recorded at Geno McCoslin's Western Place in Dallas, although there has been speculation that the track was a studio creation because of what appears to be canned audience applause. In reality, Nelson's vocal was overdubbed onto the edited track, which appeared in its original form on Jennings' 1976 live album Waylon Live.


In 1984, RCA reissued the original 11 track album on compact disc. By 1988, the original CD issue was deleted, and RCA issued a truncated version of the album on CD, omitting Waylon & Jessi's "Suspicious Minds", Tompall Glaser's "Put Another Log On The Fire" and Waylon's "Honky Tonk Heroes". The reasons for the deletions are unknown to this day. Wanted! The Outlaws was reissued on CD and cassette tape by RCA for a third time in 1996 (as the remastered 20th Anniversary edition) with all 11 original tracks restored, and augmented with 10 bonus tracks. Only one of these, Steve Earle's "Nowhere Road", had previously been unreleased.