The Nashville Underground movement united an influential portion of country music's alienated minority of singers, songwriters, and producers in the early 1970s - and didn't let go. By 1975, when Willie Nelson - relocated outside Austin, Texas for five years by then - released his groundbreaking debut album on Columbia Records, Red Headed Stranger, the movement was no longer underground and had a bold new name: Outlaw Country.
With Willie Nelson as the Godfather, aided and abetted by a mob of Nashville rebels that included Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Charlie Daniels, David Allan Coe, Billy Joe Shaver, Johnny Paycheck and others, the movement gained the traction it needed to upset the establishment. The lines between country and Southern rock had been blurred for years, and with the ascendance of the Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, there was no looking back.
Three decades later, those artists are the cornerstones of THE VERY BEST OF OUTLAW COUNTRY, a collection that gathers together the roots and branches of one of the most enduring genres in country music history. Bringing the music ahead into the new millennium with tracks from Travis Tritt, Gretchen Wilson, and Shooter Jennings, this generous 20-song single-CD is in stores now.
