Fans are loving the new posthumous release of Waylon Jennings songs called Songbird. Compiled by Waylon’s son Shooter Jennings, the ten songs were taken from archival recordings originally cut between 1973 and 1984, but didn’t make the final cut of the original albums. As the release proves, even Waylon’s leftovers were better than many modern artists’ featured singles.
The appeal for Songbird is reflected in the sales and streaming numbers for the release so far. Despite being an album from someone deceased for nearly a quarter century and competing with the mammoth new Taylor Swift album, Songbird racked up 10,757 units in sales and streaming equivalents its first week, putting it at #17 on the Billboard Country Albums chart.
Songs from the album were streamed over 2.5 million times in the first week, while physical sales were nearly 9,000. That also puts the album at #6 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, #6 on the Top Current Album Sales Chart, #7 on the Indie Store Albums Sales chart, and #9 on the Vinyl Albums sales chart. The album also ended up on the Americana/Folk Albums chart at #8, as well as the Independent Albums chart at #18.
This is the first time an original Waylon Jennings album has charted so high in 35 years, since The Eagle hit #9 back in 1990, and the first time Waylon has ever had a Top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart that measures physical sales only.
Shooter Jennings found the songs while going through his father’s recording archives.
“What I expected to find was a catalog of all of my dad’s albums and recordings,” Shooter Jennings explains. “I knew there were a few songs that were never released, for whatever reasons, so I had my fingers crossed that I would maybe find something special and rare along the way that I could share with you … What I found was way beyond my wildest fantasies.”
And there’s more where the songs of Songbird came from. Shooter has two more releases planned from the archive recordings coming.
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