The voice of Waylon Jennings is back, and it’s beautiful. Today, his son Shooter Jennings released an album called Songbird, a tracklist full of archival songs that he recently discovered, which were all recorded in the prime of Waylon’s career. It’s the first of a three-part project, and of course, Shooter produced it at Sunset Sound Studio 3, renamed by Jennings as “Snake Mountain,” where he produces all of the music he’s currently working on. When he initially announced the album, Shooter said they actually didn’t need too much work, but he did add some background vocals and other instrumentation just to polish it up and make it ready to be put on a professional album in the modern world of 2025. You’ll hear gorgeous backing vocals from two current country artists in Elizabeth Cook and Ashley Monroe. When Shooter first unearthed some of this music, his initial hope was to find a few unreleased Waylon Jennings songs that he could share with the world, though he discovered a whole lot more than that. Much of the music was recorded with Waylon’s band The Waylors in the prime of his career. It was all happening around the time that Waylon had won the fight for creative control, and he was making music on his own terms at this point: “What became very apparent to me was that my dad was recording constantly with his band The Waylors between tours. Just having won the David-and-Goliath battle against RCA for creative control and artistic freedom, Waylon was awarded the ability to record his music on his terms in his own studios, with his touring band, and without label oversight and without any outside influence.” Shooter explained that these weren’t just demos, they had been cut in a studio with the intention of being released, though unfortunately, for whatever reason, they just never made it to an album at that time: “There was just so much inside, my mind was blown! These weren’t demos, these were songs that were cut with the intention of releasing, and as time went on, not all of them found places on the albums that Waylon and the Waylors were releasing at the time.” What makes it all so much cooler is that Shooter also brought in surviving members of The Waylors to help with some final touches to polish the recordings up and make them album ready, including guitarist Gordon Payne, bassist Jerry Bridges, keyboardist Barny Robertson, and backing vocalist Carter Robertson. Shooter ensured that the music maintained the original integrity even in the modern world, and he mixed both the original and newly recorded material in a purely analog fashion on Sunset Sound Studio 3’s custom 1976 DeMedio API mixing board, which basically just means it was all done the old-fashioned way, exactly how Waylon would have done it. Shooter considers all three albums a gift to Waylon’s fans that have kept his music and legacy alive for so many years after his death in 2002: “This project has given me an entirely new chapter in my relationship with my father and working on this music has brought a whole new understanding about how, when and why my dad made music. The hard work is there on the tapes and the passion and the soul within is as alive today as it was the day it was recorded.” Shooter previously explained how much he went through to when it came to mixing the music and making sure all the tracks of all the instruments got produced correctly, and it’s beyond impressive, to say the least. With all of the recordings of previous vocals and instruments, which each individually had multiple takes per song, there were over 100 songs in total: “I used ProTools to prepare the tracks in the sense where, when they were open, they were exactly as they were put. They were digitized, but they were exactly as they were on those those tapes. So they were like 24 track sessions, the older stuff were 16 track, but most it was all 24 track. What I didn’t wanna do is do anything that would degrade that, the state of it. So what I did, some of them had like five vocal takes or six vocal takes, so I used ProTools to comp the way I would comp Charley’s records or Turnpikes. In the sense that out of those five vocals, I’ll go through and make a vocal track of the best vocal, which was really cool to do on my Dad, right? Just to hear all the different takes and go through it.” Shooter has done it all so tastefully, and it makes me respect him even more knowing he went out of his way to do it the hard way, with integrity, to entire the music was done right, just as his father would have done it. That type of character is hard to find, especially in the music industry, and it’s what makes this whole project so exciting and special. There’s no AI or gimmicks… just more of the incredible music Waylon wrote and performed that made him the icon he is. How cool is it that we get to hear his voice this way in 2025? You can absolutely tell how much love and care went into making this music as perfect as Waylon would have, and that is why it’s worth so much praise and attention. It sounds like a full and complete album Waylon would have, and maybe even wanted to, release back in the 1970s. There’s a reason Shooter’s probably the most highly sought-after producer in country right now, and this whole thing is a perfect example of why… I know his father would be incredibly proud, and he certainly delivered a massive, very important gift to country music fans like me who think Waylon was the best to ever do it. Enjoy… “I’d Like To Love You Baby” “I’m Gonna Lay Back With My Woman” “I’d Hate To Go Searchin’ Them Bars Again” “After The Ball” “Wrong Road Again” Songbird tracklist: 1. “Songbird” 2. “The Cowboy (Small Texas Town)” 3. “I’d Like To Love You Baby” 4. “I’m Gonna Lay Back With My Woman” 5. “Wrong Road Again” 6. “I Hate Searchin’ Them Bars Again” 7. “Brand New Tennessee Waltz” 8. “(I Don’t Have) Any More Love Songs” 9. “After The Ball” 10. “Dink’s Blues”The post Shooter Jennings Honors The Remarkable Legacy Of His Father Waylon Jennings With New Album Full Of Lost Songs From His Prime, ‘Songbird’ first appeared on Whiskey Riff.