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koganbotI'm pretty sure Hank Williams never sounded like the Velvet Underground. But Waylon Jennings' "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" sure does, with the two chords of "Heroin" and the unison pounding of "I'm Waiting For The Man."
I wouldn't assume conscious derivation here. I wouldn't preclude it either, but the sound likely is Waylon going for a slow, serious stomp, and grinding down on two chords for weight and emphasis, the outcome happening to resemble what Lou and co.'d done eight years earlier. John Morthland calls it "a choppy, bass-heavy beat conceived as a result of Waylon's late-fifties stint with Buddy Holly but hardened by infusions of Johnny Cash's sound." Not that Waylon didn't listen to a whole lot of rock. Not that this track isn't, fundamentally, hard rock. As rock as it is country.
Any opinions are welcome as to actual derivation, possible genuine sourcing from Velvets, etc. A toe dip into Google isn't yet finding anyone else hearing the Velvets connection, despite its being massively obvious — it jumped me when I first heard the track a decade later, mid '80s, Dreaming My Dreams taped for me by my buddy Mark Hatton with the annotation, "Perhaps the greatest country album ever."
I wouldn't assume conscious derivation here. I wouldn't preclude it either, but the sound likely is Waylon going for a slow, serious stomp, and grinding down on two chords for weight and emphasis, the outcome happening to resemble what Lou and co.'d done eight years earlier. John Morthland calls it "a choppy, bass-heavy beat conceived as a result of Waylon's late-fifties stint with Buddy Holly but hardened by infusions of Johnny Cash's sound." Not that Waylon didn't listen to a whole lot of rock. Not that this track isn't, fundamentally, hard rock. As rock as it is country.
Any opinions are welcome as to actual derivation, possible genuine sourcing from Velvets, etc. A toe dip into Google isn't yet finding anyone else hearing the Velvets connection, despite its being massively obvious — it jumped me when I first heard the track a decade later, mid '80s, Dreaming My Dreams taped for me by my buddy Mark Hatton with the annotation, "Perhaps the greatest country album ever."
