Shooter Jennings is turning long-lost Waylon Jennings recordings into two albums, Songbird and the upcoming Diamonds. He said talking about his father still gets him emotional, which gives this archival project a personal weight that reaches beyond a routine catalog release.
Sunset Sound in Hollywood
Shooter Jennings is producing the project at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, where the material is being shaped for release instead of sitting in storage. He said, "I wear my emotions on my face all the time anyway, so for everybody out there, I'm a crier," and added, "I'm proud of him and I'm proud of the work that I'm doing, and I'm proud of the legacy he left behind, because you know, he just was a good guy,".
The title track from Diamonds features The Waylors with Glen Campbell on guitar, a detail that turns the album into more than a simple vault sweep. For listeners, the practical takeaway is straightforward: these are not leftovers assembled at random, but previously unreleased tracks being presented as a new release with a clear musical frame.
16 #1 hits
Waylon Jennings left behind 16 #1 hits, and Shooter Jennings said the unreleased songs sound like direct communication rather than archival scraps. "It felt like he was having a conversation with the listener," he said, calling the material "emotional, beautiful material about love and life, and that's what he connected with – the music, and the lyrics, and the dream."
That matters because Shooter Jennings is not approaching the catalog as a souvenir business. He has produced Grammy-award winning albums for Brandi Carlisle and Tanya Tucker, so he is coming at this as a working producer with a current track record, not just as a family custodian sorting boxes in a back room.
Nashville's outlaw label
Shooter Jennings also pushed back on the familiar outlaw-country story line. "It was a marketing tool. They came up with it in Nashville. It was a way to package Waylon and Willie, and then kind of called it the outlaw movement," he said, while adding that Waylon Jennings got "creative freedom and artistic integrity and control," which is a cleaner way to understand how the myth hardened into a brand.
He tied that artistic identity to a life shaped by Texas and a youth spent between Lubbock and New Mexico, then pointed to Buddy Holly as the close friend who mattered most. In his telling, the unfinished archive is not just about preservation; it is about letting a singer who already owned 16 #1 hits keep speaking in his own voice through Songbird and Diamonds.
Diamonds next
Diamonds is the next album in the sequence, and the open question is when it will arrive. Until then, the release strategy is already clear: Shooter Jennings is using unreleased recordings to extend Waylon Jennings' recorded legacy with new albums rather than boxed-up nostalgia.
