Country music legend who died 23-years-ago has 3 new albums coming: ‘Still the King!’

Fans of old-school country music got a treat over the weekend as Shooter Jennings gave an update about something big he first teased last year.

That something big? Well, Shooter said, there are three new albums on the way from his late father, country music legend Waylon Jennings.

Considering that Waylon died all the way back in 2002, you might be wondering how that is possible. Well, Shooter explained it all, again, in a post to his Instagram over the weekend.

“In the summer of 2024, I began digging through and cataloging the hundreds of high-resolution multitrack transfers of my father’s personal studio recordings,” he wrote. “Having just started a long-term residency in the legendary Sunset Sound Studio 3, and with the help of Nate Haessly, I spent months examining these tapes. I was hoping that I might find some recordings that the world had not heard before. What I found was an audio record of an incredibly profound artist and his legendary band through their peak period of creative expansion. 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.

“There was so much inside, my mind was blown!” Shooter added. “These weren’t demos, these were songs that were out with the intention of releasing, and as time went on, not all of them found places on that album that Waylon and the Waylors were releasing at the time. And as my dad’s career went on, and the sound of the mid-to-late 80’s marched on towards a new digital recording frontier, these classic recordings were put to rest.”

Shooter said that after he got “an idea of what I was sitting on, I realized there was enough to make three special albums, made for the fans.”

“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. I also brought in my very good friends Elizabeth Cook and Ashley Monroe to help take the title track to new heights.”

Shooter wrote that he mixed the material “in a purely analog fashion.”

He then announced that “Songbird,” which will be out Oct. 3, is the first of the three albums.

“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,” Shooter added. “I hope that these records bring the kind of joy to you that they have brought me.

“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,” he added. “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. Enough explaining, just put the damn record on … and remember: Waylon Jennings is Still the King!”