Waylon firing up a smoke on the cover of this 1968 album is kind of cool. He wasn’t the acknowledged outlaw that he would later become. He was more or less a “greaser” country act that had made some nice singles and was getting more and more popular. I didn’t start smoking because of Waylon, but he certainly looked like his own man smoking his freshly rolled coffin nail. As Lou Reed once said “those were different times.”
What’s not so cool is his family allowing the use of this photo of a later, more mature Waylon holding a cigarette like he was selling dish soap on the cover of his new box set "Nashville Rebel." Cigarettes didn’t kill him in 2002, but they didn’t add any years to one of the most storied careers in country music. As a fan for over thirty years of the man and his music, I have seen hundreds of worthy photos that would serve as a better reminder of the man and the music contained on this set. The music inside is first rate, the cover is ill advised to say the least. As Bob Dylan would say "Things Have Changed."
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