Previously unreleased music from Waylon Jennings, a pioneer of country music’s outlaw movement, is on the way more than 20 years after the musician’s death from complications related to diabetes.
The 46-year-old record producer said he began combing through and cataloging hundreds of his father’s studio recordings in the summer of 2024, just a few months after he began a long-term residency at Hollywood’s Sunset Sound Studio.
“I was hoping that I might find some recordings that the world had not heard before,” he said. “What I found was an audio record of an incredibly profound artist and his legendary band through their peak period of creative expansion.”
Waylon Jennings began touring in the late 1950s as a bassist for singer Buddy Holly. Holly died in a February 1959 plane crash that also claimed the lives of Mexican American singer Ritchie Valens, disc jockey J.P. Richardson, and pilot Roger Peterson.
The Texas native went on to form his backing and recording band, The Waylors—now called Waymore’s Outlaws—releasing his debut record, “Waylon at JD’s,” in 1964. He put out more than 40 studio albums throughout his career, releasing his last record, “Closing In on the Fire,” in 1998. He died four years later at the age of 64.
Shooter Jennings said the songs he discovered had never managed to find a place on his father’s albums, even though they were recorded with the intention of being released.
“And as my dad’s career went on, and the sound of the mid-to-late 80s marched on towards a new digital recording frontier, these classic recordings were put to rest,” he wrote.
“Although most of the material was fully finished, in the cases of the few songs that might have ‘needed something else,’ I brought in some of the remaining Waylors (Jerry Bridges, Carter and Barny Robertson, and Gordon Payne) to help me put the final touches on the work.”
Shooter Jennings also enlisted the help of singer-songwriters Elizabeth Cook and Ashley Monroe for “Songbird,” the title track of the first of Waylon Jennings’s three forthcoming posthumous release albums.
“‘Songbird’ is the beginning of Waylon’s return to the modern world,” Shooter Jennings said of the album, which will be released on Oct 3.
“This is the first of three gifts from me to you: the fans that have kept my father’s voice, songs, and legacy alive all these years.
“The next few years are going to be full of some of the most exciting musical moments that the world never knew they were going to hear. I hope that these records bring the kind of joy to you that they have brought to me.”
