Triple GRAMMY® Award-winner Shooter Jennings has announced the release of “Songbird”, a completely new, previously unheard album by his legendary father, Waylon Jennings. The album will be released via Son of Jessi/Thirty Tigers on 3rd October 2025. “Songbird” is the first of three previously unheard albums worth of material by the groundbreaking country music artist. It collects recordings produced between 1973 and 1984 in various studios by Jennings and his longtime drummer and co-producer Richie Albright, featuring members of his backing band, The Waylors, including Albright and pedal steel guitarist Ralph Mooney, along with such special guests as Tony Joe White, Jessi Colter, and more. It was compiled and mixed by Shooter Jennings at Hollywood, CA’s Sunset Sound Studio 3. “Songbird” is available to pre-order/pre-save using this link.
The Songbird project began in the summer of 2024 as Shooter Jennings began sorting through hundreds of high-resolution multitrack transfers of his father’s personal studio recordings.
“What became very apparent to me was that my dad was recording constantly with his band The Waylors between tours,” says Jennings. “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.”
Though the majority of the recordings were fully finished, Jennings added a few final touches by bringing in a number of surviving members of The Waylors, including guitarist Gordon Payne, bassist Jerry Bridges, keyboardist Barny Robertson, and backing vocalist Carter Robertson, with contemporary country stars Elizabeth Cook and Ashley Monroe specially enlisted to help take “Songbird” to new heights. Jennings then mixed the original and newly recorded material “in a purely analogue fashion” on Sunset Sound Studio 3’s custom 1976 DeMedio API mixing board.
“Songbird” is heralded by the first single and title track, Jennings’ version of Christine McVie’s Fleetwood Mac classic ‘Songbird,’ alongside an official visualiser/music video.
