Various Artists

The Very Best of Outlaw Country

This 20-track collection offers a more inclusive and far-reaching definition of “outlaw country” than one might expect. The usual suspects are here—1970s outlaw stalwarts like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter and Billy Joe Shaver. But The Very Best of Outlaw Country also reaches back to the 1960s for Johnny Cash’s cold-blooded “Cocaine Blues,” throws in ’70s Southern rockers like Lynyrd Skynyrd and Molly Hatchet and traces the outlaw tradition through the new millennium, with recent kickers like Gretchen Wilson’s “Here for the Party” and second-generation outlaw Shooter Jennings’ “4th of July.”

• April 21, 2008
• by Chris Neal

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