Texas Music Magazine
Photo courtesy Blue Rose Music
At her recent record release show at the Continental Club in Austin, Shannon McNally explained that once she announced her upcoming release of
The Waylon Sessions, she got used to being asked, “Why an album of Waylon covers?” And her honest response? “Because I can.”
That response is pretty damn Waylon of McNally, as is her decision to put together a feminine reading of songs connected with one of country music’s most swaggering and tough outlaws. While musically McNally’s renditions don’t stray too far from the original source material (not a bad thing), hearing these songs sung by a woman makes them feel reimagined. And the songs hold up well, as does McNally’s vocal performance, a testament to her strength as a singer, considering that Jennings had one of the best voices in country music.
Shannon McNally Tunes into an Outlaw Frequency for The Waylon Sessions nodepression.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nodepression.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Photo: Alysse Gafkjen
âYou have to have some charm to play classic country â you have to have respect for your instrument,â says Shannon McNally, who is talking to me on the phone about her new full-length
The Waylon Sessions. The album features songs written and recorded by the great outlaw-country singer Waylon Jennings. Iâm catching up with McNally as sheâs making her way up I-55 out of Jackson, Miss., where sheâs played a show, back home to Nashville by way of Memphis.
I think I get what sheâs telling me about charm. Indeed, McNally found her own way to perform the Jennings songs that make up her latest album. McNally and I trade travel notes about the impossibility of splitting the right angle to save time between Jackson and Nashville, and you can tell she knows the territory. She lived in New Orleans and Mississippi before moving to Nashville in 2017. As I tell her,