Shannon Mcnally

With her new album, The Waylon Sessions, the prolific and wide-ranging Shannon McNally set out to revisit the songs and spirit of Waylon Jennings, a legend with whom she’s always had an ongoing fascination. But her collection of tunes ended up being not so much a tribute as it is a recontextualization; a nuanced, feminine rendering of a catalog long considered a bastion of hetero-masculinity. That’s not to say McNally has a softer, gentler take on Jennings’ songs — in fact, just the opposite. Over and over again, she manages to locate a smoldering intensity, a searing hurt buried deep within the music’s deceptively simple poetry, and she hones in on it with surgical precision on this new album, which features special guests like Jessi Colter, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, and Lukas Nelson.

Why Waylon is funky and deserves to be appreciated by 30 year old girls and the pleasure of working with Terry Allen. New York born Shannon McNally has had a 20-year career in roots American music playing with a whole host of roots music legends including Rodney Crowell, Jim Lauderdale, The North Mississippi Allstars, Bobby Charles, Dr. John, Levon Helm and Willie Nelson among others. As well as maintaining her own solo career, she is also a member of Terry Allen’s Panhandle Mystery Band. When she joined Joe Poletto’s Blue Rose Music she was asked what would she record if she was given free rein and she said an album of Waylon Jennings tunes. Americana UK’s Martin Johnson caught up with Shannon McNally to discuss her new record ‘The Waylon Sessions’ and her career to date. Shannon explained why she felt that Waylon’s legacy need to be refreshed and how she is hoping that her record will bring Waylon’s music to the attention of 30 year old girls. She also explained that when listening to classic rock music on New York radio it was the sweet spot where the music of artists such as The Rolling Stones overlapped with roots American music such as the blues and country, and a J J Cale record she was given by her uncle, that inspired her to become a musician and started her on a musical journey that has taken her all over America..

Shannon McNally performs "I've Always Been Crazy", "Black Rose" and "We Had It All" for WMOT's Finally Friday From Home. DL Rossi performs "Don't Wait Up", "Tumbling", "True Blue" and "Whiskey" for WMOT's Finally Friday From Home. Finally Friday From Home: Danny Burns and Parker Millsap. By Val Hoeppner •...

In the U.S., Lulu was pretty much a one-hit wonder. She topped American charts for five weeks with the terrific “To Sir with Love,” one of the most likable mainstream hits of 1967 (and one of the best-orchestrated pop records of its era, right up there with the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” and Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe”). Three of her other singles made minor dents in the Top 40 in 1968, 1970, and 1981, but they rarely receive any airplay today.

In the liner notes on Shannon McNally’s new record, the singer confessed that she’s had a long fascination with Waylon Jennings‘ music. She wrote, “Just the name ‘Waylon’ makes me sit up in my chair and look around like I might see an apparition or a buffalo standing in the living room…. I have always loved his defiantly existential but immediately accessible common man’s music and how it boogies.” That’s an odd way to describe the man and his music, but her reverence is clear.

Shannon McNally honors one of her greatest musical heroes, Waylon Jennings, on forthcoming album The Waylon Sessions (out May 28 via Compass Records in partnership with Blue Rose. The album, which includes reimagined versions of Jennings' classics, from "I Ain't Living Long Like This" to "You Asked Me To," features Jessi Colter, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, and Lukas Nelson.

In Their Words: “‘This Time’ was written by Waylon. He didn’t write all of his songs. In fact, he probably didn’t write most of them, but the ones he did write were his best. I believe he was talking about a personal relationship with a lover, but as I sing it, I think of it as my relationship to the music business and my personal struggles with it as a woman and an artist. I particularly love the Wurlitzer intro and how the kick drum and acoustic guitar come in sounding like a sunny day. All of Waylon’s grooves remind me of horse gaits. This one is a full canter and the harmonica is the river running beside it. This song is the high point or key to me getting into the headspace that permits me to sing the rest of the album. For me there is relief in its directness. It’s my favorite song on the album.” — Shannon McNally.

Shannon McNally is a honky tonk hero on her new album, a dream project comprised of classic outlaw country anthems and personal favorites from the catalog of Waylon Jennings. The Waylon Sessions features a superior band of country music sophisticates as well as guest shots from Lukas Nelson, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, and Jessi Colter exploring the aura of one of American music’s biggest icons. Drawing on her own extensive career and experiences, McNally imbues each track with a fresh style and attitude while accessing a new dimension of Ol’ Waylon’s legend. The Waylon Sessions rolls out on May 28th. Pre-order now!

Shannon McNally isn't an Austinite, but the singer-songwriter who currently calls Nashville home has ties to the Live Music Capital. She's spent much of the past few years singing Texas songwriter Terry Allen's band alongside prominent Austin musicians such as Lloyd Maines and Charlie Sexton. And South Austin venue Sam's Town Point has became a local home base of sorts for McNally, a place for her to work out new material with her band in an intimate setting.

Travis Tritt And Chris Janson Tribute The Late Waylon Jennings With Special Grand Ole Opry Performance and Video Premiere: Shannon McNally «Black Rose» from Her Forthcoming Album Evoking the Songs and Spirit of Waylon Jennings. Last News:. Driving success with connectivity optimization and analytics. Large-scale repairs and fight against pandemic:...

On her forthcoming album, Shannon McNally shares her perspective on the many moods of Waylon Jennings. McNally enlisted Jessi Colter, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, Lukas Nelson and others to evoke the spirit of the country icon on The Waylon Sessions, which will be released by Blue Rose Music and Compass Records on May 28 (and is now available for pre-order). She reveals, “I have always loved his defiantly existential but immediately accessible common man’s music and how it boogies.” McNally, who covers 11 tunes on the record, both compositions written by Jennings and others long associated with him, adds, “My goal wasn’t to force anything onto the music that wasn’t there already. 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.”

“This is high art right here —cotton field disco perfection, the first generator in the county. The chorus on this song may be the best chorus of all time,” says Shannon McNally of Waylon Jennings’ “Black Rose”—a Billy Joe Shaver-penned tune she just cut with Buddy Miller for her new album, The Waylon Sessions. “‘The devil made me do it the first time, the second time I did it on my own.’ Talk about the fight for good and evil and staring the devil down at the crossroads.” The grooving, lazy two-step feel of the original is magnified in McNally’s new version, accented by blasts of harmonica and Miller’s slinky baritone guitar. Today, Relix premiered the “wry, playful video” for “Black Rose,” noting that it “complements McNally’s warm, winning take on the tune."

With her new album, The Waylon Sessions, the prolific and wide-ranging Shannon McNally set out to revisit the songs and spirit of Waylon Jennings, a legend with whom she’s always had an ongoing fascination. “I have always loved his defiantly existential but immediately accessible common man’s music and how it boogies,” says McNally. But her collection of tunes ended up being not so much a tribute as it is a recontextualization; a nuanced, feminine rendering of a catalog long considered a bastion of hetero-masculinity.

When Shannon McNally signed with the artist collective Blue Rose Music, she was given the option of recording … well, whatever she wanted. Which would be a dream come true for most of us, corporate backing with no demands on our artistic output. But where many singer/songwriters would choose to record their own material, McNally—who already has several releases of original material under her belt going back nearly two decades—chose to record not only an album of covers, but an album of songs originally cut by one of the most iconic country legends ever, and a male legend at that.