Recorded with an all-star band and featuring special guests like Jessi Colter, Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, and Lukas Nelson, Shannon McNally's extraordinary new collection, 'The Waylon Sessions', isn't so much a tribute to Waylon Jennings 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 the songs of Jennings and his outlaw compatriots here; 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 a surgical precision. McNally doesn't swap pronouns or couch her delivery with a wink; she simply plays it straight, singing her truth as a divorced single mother in her 40s in all its beauty, pain, and power. The result is that rare covers record that furthers our understanding of the originals, an album of classics that challenges our perceptions and assumptions about just what made them classics in the first place.

 

When I listen to Waylon, I hear an adult, says McNally. He sounds like a grownup, and for a long time, I think being a grownup has been confused with being a man. There's a feminine perspective hidden somewhere inside each of these songs, though. My job was to find a way to tap into that and draw it out.

 

Tracklisting

 

1. I've Always Been Crazy - Shannon McNally
2. You Asked Me To - Shannon McNally (feat. Buddy Miller)
3. Out Among The Stars - Shannon McNally (feat. Jessi Colter)
4. You Show Me Yours And I'll Show You Mine - Shannon McNally (feat. Lukas Nelson)
5. Black Rose - Shannon McNally (feat. Buddy Miller)
6. This Time - Shannon McNally
7. I Ain't Living Long Like This - Shannon McNally (feat. Rodney Crowell)
8. I'm A Ramblin Man - Shannon McNally
9. Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys - Shannon McNally
10. Help Me Make It Through The Night - Shannon McNally
11. We Had It All - Shannon McNally
12. Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line (CD Only Bonus Track) - Shannon McNally
13. Waltz Me To Heaven (CD Only Bonus Track) - Shannon McNally