Waylon Jennings’ Lost Recordings Unearthed: Shooter Jennings Brings His Father’s True Voice Back with Songbird

“That sounded good.”

With the fading notes of Fleetwood Mac’s 'Songbird', its pondering keys dissolving into whimpering steel and a waltzing twang, came those unassuming words.

While “good” does little to describe Waylon Jennings’ take on the 1977 classic, it’s his words–warm and welcoming–that tear through what’s left of the teary-eyed title track of his new posthumous collection. For just a moment, they capture the true spirit of a man many only think they know.

Throughout his career, Jennings earned a reputation as one of country music’s boldest and most rebellious contrarians, leading the outlaw movement of the 1970s with a middle-fingered fist raised.

Since his death in 2002, that version has been endlessly remastered, re-issued and reimagined, while long-forgotten demos and alternate takes have been packaged and pushed with numbing regularity.

Songbird, the newly compiled posthumous album mixed by his son, Shooter Jennings, features one thing that many of the past compilations have lacked: Waylon Jennings himself.

“The thing that came across so much in his music to me, when I went through all of it, is what a good guy he was, what a gentle guy he was,” Shooter shares in conversation with Holler.

During the summer of 2024, the artist-producer found himself with an exclusive residency at Hollywood’s famed Sunset Sound Studio 3. Plans to produce a record were put on hold, and a backlog of his father’s old tapes was in need of sorting. Having stared down the barrel of this task before, Shooter knew that nothing was labeled and the undertaking would be a massive one.

“There was one song that I knew existed,” he remembers thinking at the start of this journey. “I was like, ‘At the very least, I'll find that one song.’”

What Shooter found, instead, was so much more. These weren’t demos or the ghosts of songs. He had unearthed fully fleshed out, multitrack recordings of Waylon, alongside his revered backing band The Waylors, intended for release.

“It was apparent really quickly that there was a lot of stuff here that had not been heard,” Shooter says. “It's kind of hard to explain. It was very emotional, obviously, but at the same time it was like a movie.”

As Shooter rifled through hundreds of Waylon’s personal studio recordings from an era that saw the artist enjoying a hard-earned independence and newfound creative swell, decades-old tales he had been told became tactile truth. It's here that another likeness of his father and the outlaw also began to materialize.

“It was like going and discovering pieces of my dad's life that I didn't know were there,” he explains. “It was just mind blowing how much stuff was in there. I was kind of forensically analyzing my dad's recording career from ‘71 into ‘85.”

With enough never-before-heard music to compile three whole albums, this discovery set Shooter on a new path, the producer now charged with capturing and unveiling his father’s true legacy for the 21st century.

Songbird is the first product of this multi-album endeavor and the purest of them all.

“It's really untouched for the most part,” Shooter says of the album, explaining how he recruited harmonies when needed and filled in sparingly where there had been gaps in production. Most of the finishing touches were accomplished with several surviving members of The Waylors, like guitarist Gordon Payne, bassist Jerry Bridges, Barny Robertson on keys and Carter Robertson as backing vocalist.

Throughout Songbird, listeners get to experience a different side of the country icon.

“When someone's gone a long time, the representation of who they are morphs over time into something that isn’t really true to them,” Shooter shares. “I feel like the biggest misrepresentation that was always around my dad is that he was this tough guy, or the outlaw thing or whatever… The tough guy thing is non-existent in this material.”

The rough-edged image that gave the genre standards like ‘I’m a Ramblin’ Man’ and ‘Honky Tonk Heroes’ fades away with the unadorned ‘The Cowboy (Small Texas Town)’ and the reformed ‘I Hate To Go Searchin’ Them Bars Again’ to reveal a sleek songsmith and effortless talent.

That can be heard best of all in many of the album’s in-between moments, those unassuming, yet momentous few seconds filled with life. Waylon’s sharp focus and unwavering leadership is evident in the rattling of a soft “1… 2… 3…” or the even-keeled request for another take. The joy he felt while making music with his band is also tangible, as driving rhythms and runaway strings dissolve into uproarious laughter.

“You could just tell how much they loved each other, how much they loved making music together,” Shooter says of his father and The Waylors. “They were just this band that was firing on all cylinders… They had this chemistry. There was a happiness, and you can hear it in there.”

Just as that love and patience between artist and band is clear, there is also plenty of understanding between song and self. As a result, much of the collection remains wonderfully unbuttoned, with songs trailing off or ending abruptly. Songbird wasn’t meant to be perfect because Waylon wasn’t perfect; he was real.

“It is a true representation of him after he's been gone so long,” Shooter says of this batch of new music, remarking on his commitment to sharing the most faithful version of his father throughout this project. “I felt it was my job to bring it out. I have to shepherd this out in the world, because people are going to really be touched by it.”

Songbird–as well as its subsequent releases–was a labor of love, not simply as a tribute to his dad, but also as an offering to the generation of fans who have loved Waylon and the ones his music is still capable of reaching.

“Even though he's my father, he belongs to the people,” Shooter adds. “I'm going to do the best I can to represent him like he was. He was somebody who really just cared about other people, who cared about music and that was it.”

Songbird, the new album from Waylon Jennings, is out Friday October 3rd via Son of Jessi.

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