“On 'Honky Tonk Heroes,' Waylon Jennings had no one else to answer to, and the joyful mess of the album testifies to the kind of magic that can happen when you finally cut a lifelong misfit loose. 'Honky Tonk Heroes' isn’t Jennings’ first great album, but it was the first that captured his wild-hair energy instead of attempting to tame it. It belonged completely to him. It was so liberating that it would unleash a series of triumphs. This is the birthplace of the iconic 1970s Waylon, the one who would go on to slalom across the rest of the decade on a series of increasingly brilliant albums and mountains of cocaine. Waylon Jennings transformed himself into the Waylon, the leader of a movement forever altering the perception of country music in America.”