Jamey Johnson Targets Waylon

Jamey Johnson photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Aug. 22, 2008 — Jamey Johnson’s new album, "That Lonesome Song," sounds very much like a Waylon Jennings album, an observation that Jamey takes as a supreme compliment.

In fact, he’s such a fan of Waylon that the new CD features two covers of songs that appeared on Waylon’s 1975 album Dreaming My Dreams: the title cut and "The Door Is Always Open." Jamey had several personal setbacks that sent him into depression before he recorded That Lonesome Song, and listening to Dreaming My Dreams helped him connect with the emotions he was feeling.

"Very inspirational album to me growin’ up," Jamey assesses. "It’s one of the things that got me started off on the right foot. I got to hear songwriting [on that album] from guys like Cowboy Jack Clement, Allen Reynolds, Bob McDill, Dickey Lee — and not to mention Waylon Jennings. There’s a Roger Miller tune on that album. There’s so many good things about that one album in particular for me that it’s just an education, and it’s been one of my favorite albums in my whole life. Every so often, I’ll go back and listen to the whole thing, start to finish again. I wanna hear that and feel it, and every time you learn somethin' different."

Jamey is now friends with Waylon’s son, Shooter Jennings, who pays honor to his dad with the Oct. 21 release of Waylon Forever. The disc features a number of songs that Shooter and Waylon recorded in the mid-1990s, including remakes of "Ain’t Living Long Like This," "Are You Ready For The Country" and "Lonesome, On’ry And Mean."