In 1976,Jerry Bradley, General Manager of RCA in Nashville, saw the great successes of Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger and Jennings' Dreaming My Dream and decided there must be something to this idea of Outlaw Country, so he put together tracks from Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser as a compila-tion album, and wisely titled it Wanted: The Outlaws.
The name “Outlaw” came from Hazel Smith, a secretary at Hillbilly Central, Glaser’s recording studio. She’d been referring to the artists who recorded there as “outlaws”.
The album became country music’s first million-selling album.