For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: Waylon at the Tarrant County Convention Center in ’76

Been thinkin’ about Waylon Jennings quite a bit this week; can’t imagine why. Even went home Wednesday night and dug out the re-release of the 1976 classic Waylon Live, fleshed out years later to 42 tracks of can’t-beat-it country music recorded in Austin and at The Western Place, “a classy, up-town country and western club with deep pile carpeting and sophisticated lighting” once located at 6551 Skillman. That record’s the very definition of essential.

Spent all of three seconds looking for way more Waymore and stumbled across this just-posted audience recording made when Waylon and the Waylors stopped off at the Tarrant County Convention Center in April ’76. Though these 18 cuts are nowhere near as crystal clear as the official live marathon, it contains its copious highlights — not the least of which are a Willie Nelson guest shot on “Good Hearted Woman” and a duet with Mrs. Waylon, the great Jessi Colter, on “Suspicious Minds,” which I’ve spent the better part of 20 minutes playing and replaying just because. Waylon Jennings is still the king.