Shannon McNally’s new release
Shannon McNally
‘The Waylon Sessions’
Out May 28, 2021
In 2018, Shannon McNally partnered with Joe Poletto at Blue Rose Music to develop her new album, The Waylon Sessions, a collection of songs from Waylon Jennings and his outlaw cohorts. The album will be released on Compass Records on May 28, 2021. The new record features special guests like Jessi Colter, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell and Lukas Nelson.
McNally reveals she’s always had an ongoing fascination with Jennings:
“I have always loved his defiantly existential but immediately accessible common man’s music and how it boogies.”
“The world has changed a lot since these songs were first recorded,” says McNally. “I have never heard a woman sing any of them, but these tunes are poignant and relevant to me and to women in general right now. As a songwriter, bringing a song to its full potential so that a larger or different audience can connect is all I’ve ever cared about.”
The first glimpse of what to expect comes with the premiere of “I Ain’t Living Long Like This” with Crowell. The song was penned by Jennings and Crowell and first appeared in 1979.
McNally enlisted renowned, Award-winning guitarist Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart, Lucinda Williams) to help her assemble an exemplary team for the recording…
…that included drummer Derek Mixon (Chris Stapleton), pedal steel legend and long-time Jennings bandmate Fred Newell, Texas keyboard mainstay Bukka Allen (Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Jeff Walker) and bassist Chris Scruggs (Marty Stuart, Charlie Louvin).
“My goal wasn’t to force anything onto the music that wasn’t there already,” explains McNally. “There’s a feminine perspective hidden somewhere inside each of these songs. My job was to find a way to tap into that and draw it out.”
The Waylon Sessions Tracklisting:
- I’ve Always Been Crazy
- You Asked Me To – feat. Buddy Miller
- Out Among The Stars – feat. Jessi Colter
- You Show Me Yours And I’ll Show You Mine – feat. Lukas Nelson
- Black Rose – feat. Buddy Miller
- This Time
- I Ain’t Living Long Like This – feat. Rodney Crowell
- I’m A Ramblin’ Man
- Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys
- Help Me Make It Through The Night
- We Had It All
More About Shannon McNally:
Born and raised on Long Island, McNally has, at various points, called New Orleans, Nashville, and Holly Springs, Mississippi, home, but it was in Los Angeles that she first came to national attention in the early 2000’s with her Capitol Records debut Jukebox Sparrows. She followed it up in 2005 with the critically-acclaimed Geronimo.
A restless creative spirit with a magnetic personality, McNally would go on to release a wide range of similarly-lauded albums, EPs and collaborations over the next fifteen years, performing on stage and in the studio with the likes of Willie Nelson, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Levon Helm, Charlie Sexton, Derek Trucks, Terry Allen, and many more.
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Shannon McNally’s new release
