Jennings, who fought RCA and the Nashville system tooth and nail to gain control over his music in the early seventies, actively sought out Music Row's most commercial songwriters for Hangin' Tough, which was produced by Jennings and Jimmy Bowen. Like his previous album Will the Wolf Survive, it displays a slicker sound typical of the records coming out of Nashville in the mid-1980s, utilizing synthesizers and digital recording, but Jennings vocal style on the LP, which AllMusic describes as "stout and unflappable," carries off the songs with conviction. "Rose in Paradise," written by Jim McBride and Stewart Harris, was released in January 1987 as the first single from the album and became Jennings' twelfth number one country single, remaining there for one week and spending a total of nineteen weeks on the country chart. The song tells the story of a wealthy, jealous banker from Macon who keeps his wife a virtual prisoner in his mansion. The woman ends up cheating on him with the gardener, causing him to kill both and bury them in the garden under a rose bush. A second single, "Fallin' Out," a song about a troubled marriage, reached #8. Hangin' Tough also displays Jennings' fondness for digressing beyond the country format. "Chevy Van," which had been a hit single for Sammy Johns in 1973, details how an unnamed male driver picks up an unnamed female, who then proceeds to eventually seduce him into a one-night stand in the back of his Chevrolet Van. At the end he drops her off "in a town that was so small, you could throw a rock from end to end. A dirt road main street, she walked off in bare feet", and laments "It's a shame I won't be passing through again." Jennings looks back to the seventies again with his reading of Gerry Rafferty's 1978 hit "Baker Street," which opens the album and substitutes a bluesy, Eric Clapton-sounding guitar solo for the original's famous saxophone tag line. Another interesting song choice is "Defying Gravity (The Executioner's Song)" written by cult hero Jesse Winchester.
Jennings, who was only recently drug-free at the time of the sessions, later expressed disappointment with the album and his performance: "After I signed with MCA, we gave it out best shot, through a couple of albums...On Will the Wolf Survive? and Hangin' Tough, it was like I was off in a corner of a separate room, clouded by delay, distanced. I wasn't leading the band. I was trying to get my feet back on the ground, and that took as much concentration as singing. Though I was off drugs, I was still smoking heavily, and my voice showed the wear and tear."[2]
Critical reception
Hangin' Tough, Jennings second release on MCA, peaked at #19 on the Billboard country albums chart, which was starting to be dominated by a new generation of younger country singers like Randy Travis. AllMusic: "Waylon perfectly articulates a unique romantic dilemma in 'I Can't Help the Way I Don't Feel About You,' emphasizing the irony of the situation...Perhaps most impressive, though, is the unguarded melancholy so eloquently expressed in the quietly heartbreaking 'Crying Don't Even Come Close.' Hangin' Tough isn't a definitive Waylon album, but it will reveal its share of diamonds in the rough to hardcore fans."
