Black on Black

Background

By 1981, Jennings' excessive lifestyle had caught up to him financially. Despite a string of #1 albums and sellout concerts, the overhead of keeping his show on the road combined with his cocaine habit had drained nearly all of his resources. In the audio version of his autobiography Waylon, he admitted to spending up to $1,500 a day on the drug and also confessed to being out of touch with the personnel on his tours:

"The tours were runnin' well into the red. People were hanging out and gettin' paid for it. We had close to fifty bodies on our payroll, and I was not sure of what any of 'em were doing. There were at least twenty more people than we needed on the crew, and if I saw somebody twice in a week, I'd ask Richie [Albright], 'Are they workin' for us?'...For every million dollars I was takin' in, I was spending two million."

In the spring of 1981, Jennings, drummer Richie Albright, and financial advisor Bill Robinson went over the singer's business affairs at a hotel in Los Angeles and found that he owed more than two million dollars and was over $800,000 overdrawn to the bank.

Production

Producer: Chips Moman

Liner Photo: Catrina O'Brian

Personnel

Pickers: Waylon Jennings, Chips Moman, Bobby Emmons, Johnny Christopher, Ralph Mooney, Jerry Bridges, Reggie Young, Gary Scruggs, Jerry Gropp, Bobby Wood, Gene Chrisman, Tommy Cogbill, Mike Leech

Singers: Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, Toni Wine, Chips Moman, Johnny Christopher, Gary Scruggs, Jerry Gropp, Willie Nelson