WAYLON JENNINGS RELEASES NEW SINGLE "THE COWBOY"

WAYLON JENNINGS TELLS THE TALE OF

“THE COWBOY (SMALL TEXAS TOWN)”

PREVIOUSLY UNHEARD SONG HERALDS

FIRST OF THREE ALL-NEW COLLECTIONS

BY THE GROUNDBREAKING COUNTRY MUSIC SUPERSTAR,

NEWLY COMPILED AND MIXED BY HIS SON,

3X GRAMMY®-WINNING PRODUCER/ARTIST SHOOTER JENNINGS

SONGBIRD ARRIVES VIA SON OF JESSI/THIRTY TIGERS ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3

PREORDER/PRESAVES AVAILABLE NOW

3x GRAMMY® Award-winner Shooter Jennings has shared “The Cowboy (Small Texas Town),” a previously unheard new single by his legendary father, Waylon Jennings, available everywhere now via Son of Jessi/Thirty Tigers. Written by outlaw country legend Johnny Rodriguez and originally recorded during sessions for Jennings’ chart-topping 1978 album, I’ve Always Been Crazy, the track heralds the upcoming arrival of Songbird, the first of three completely new albums worth of material by the groundbreaking country music superstar, arriving Friday, October 3. Preorder/presaves available now

“It’s a beautifully simple song that tells the story of an artist from humble beginnings uniting both sides of the aisle over music and I think the first half tells my dad’s tale pretty simply,” says Shooter Jennings. “The second half really turns the heat up. It’s got one of my favorite lines I’d heard in a long time in it about the ‘white collar people.’ It fits more today maybe than it did when it was written.”

LISTEN TO “THE COWBOY (SMALL TEXAS TOWN)”

PREORDER/PRESAVE SONGBIRD

Compiled and mixed by Shooter Jennings at Hollywood, CA’s hallowed Sunset Sound Studio 3, Songbird collects recordings produced between 1973 and 1984 in various studios by Waylon Jennings and his longtime drummer and co-producer Richie Albright, featuring members of his indelible backing band, The Waylors, including Albright and renowned pedal steel guitarist Ralph Mooney, along with such special guests as Tony Joe White, Jessi Colter, and more. The album was first unveiled earlier this summer with the first single and title track, Jennings’ tender version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird,” available everywhere alongside an official music video streaming now at YouTube.

“Songbird” – which features newly recorded backing vocals from contemporary country stars Elizabeth Cook and Ashley Monroe – was met by widespread applause from such publications as Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, Billboard, Stereogum, Variety, American Songwriter, Parade, Whiskey Riff, and Holler, the latter of which raved, “Waylon Jennings’ version of the Rumours classic is nothing short of perfect. With a softly sighing pedal steel and a plaintive piano, Waylon’s baritone sounds as crisp and warm as it does on any of the songs from his enduring back catalogue as he breathes another new life into a song that’s become a timeless rock favorite to so many music lovers over the years.”

The Songbird project began in the summer of 2024 as Shooter Jennings began sorting through hundreds of high-resolution multitrack transfers of his father’s personal studio recordings. Having just begun an exclusive residency at Hollywood’s historic Sunset Sound Studio 3 (redubbed by Jennings as “Snake Mountain”), the 3x GRAMMY® Award-winning producer and artist set to work examining the tapes with the help of veteran engineer Nate Haessly. While his initial hope was to simply unearth some previously lost Waylon Jennings songs that he could share with the world, what he instead discovered 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,” says Shooter Jennings. “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 just so much inside, my mind was blown! These weren’t demos, these were songs that were cut with the intention of releasing, and as time went on, not all of them found places on the albums that Waylon and the Waylors were releasing at the time.”

Jennings soon realized there was more than enough gold in his father’s vast musical archive to create not just one, but three, brand new Waylon Jennings albums more than two decades after his untimely passing in 2002. Though the majority of the recordings were fully finished, he added a few final touches by bringing in a number of surviving members of The Waylors, including guitarist Gordon Payne, bassist Jerry Bridges, keyboardist Barny Robertson, and backing vocalist Carter Robertson. Jennings then mixed the original and newly recorded material “in a purely analog fashion” on Sunset Sound Studio 3’s custom 1976 DeMedio API mixing board.

“Songbird is the beginning of Waylon’s return to the modern world,” Shooter Jennings says. “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 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. 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.”

WAYLON JENNINGS

SONGBIRD

(Son of Jessi/Thirty Tigers)

Release Date: Friday, October 3, 2025

Tracklist:

Songbird

The Cowboy (Small Texas Town)

I’d Like To Love You Baby

I’m Gonna Lay Back With My Woman

Wrong Road Again

I Hate To Go Searchin’ Them Bars Again

The Brand New Tennessee Waltz