Honky Tonk Heroes

Honky Tonk Heroes
Studio album by Waylon Jennings
Released	June 25, 1973
Recorded	1973
Studio	RCA Victor (Nashville, Tennessee)[1]
Genre	Outlaw Country
Length	27:21
Label	RCA Victor
Producer	Waylon Jennings (all tracks except 4 & 9) Tompall Glaser (tracks 1–3, 5, 7, 8) Ronny Light (tracks 4 & 9) Ken Mansfield (track 10)
Waylon Jennings chronology
Lonesome, On'ry and Mean (1973) Honky Tonk Heroes (1973) This Time (1974)
Singles from Honky Tonk Heroes
"We Had It All" Released: May 26, 1973 "You Ask Me To" Released: October 4, 1973

Honky Tonk Heroes is a country music album by Waylon Jennings, released in 1973 on RCA Victor. With the exception of the final track on the album, "We Had It All", all of the songs on the album were written or co-written by Billy Joe Shaver. The album is considered an important piece in the development of the outlaw sub-genre in country music as it revived the honky tonk music of Nashville and added elements of rock and roll to it.

Jennings had in passing invited the then unknown Billy Joe Shaver to Nashville to write the songs for Jennings' next album after hearing him sing "Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me" before the 1972 Dripping Springs Reunion from the back of a camper. When Shaver arrived in Nashville, he spent six months pursuing Jennings before finally again convincing him to make an album of his songs. Jennings had recently renegotiated his contract with RCA Records. The label granted him creative control over his work to avoid losing him to Atlantic Records. As his usual producer, Chet Atkins, was reluctant to release a record consisting of songs written by an unknown songwriter, Jennings replaced him with Tompall Glaser. Jennings replaced the Nashville session musicians with his own band, The Waylors.

The executives of RCA Records were reluctant to release the album, and delayed it until June 1973. Honky Tonk Heroes had a good reception by the critics on release. It reached number 14 in Billboard's Top Country albums chart. The singles "You Asked Me To" and "We Had It All" did well, reaching number 8 and 28, respectively. The album was later listed in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die in 2005.