Behind The Lens: Shooter Jennings Reigns With Landmark Production Career
- Charles Luberisse
- 17 minutes ago
- 3 min read
3x GRAMMY Award-winner Shooter Jennings continues his landmark work as a hit-making producer with a striking array of recent releases. Jennings’s groundbreaking and diverse work in the studio throughout the past year includes such acclaimed albums and singles as Turnpike Troubadours’ surprise new album, The Price of Admission, Charley Crockett’s Lonesome Drifter, Lukas Nelson’s Ain’t Done (from his upcoming solo debut album, American Romance), Robert Randolph’s Sinner (from his own upcoming solo debut album, Preacher Kids), Claire Hinkle’s Hot Shit, A.J. Croce’s Heart of the Eternal, Whitey Morgan and the 78’s’ Somewhere Along The Way, We Had It All, and Let Me Roll, Luke Tyler Shelton’s Hell of a Ride and Where The West Begins, The Wild Feathers’ Sirens, American Aquarium’s The Fear of Standing Still, Jesse Dayton’s The Hard Way Blues, and Militarie Gun’s Life Under The Sun (featuring Bully, Mannequin Pussy, and Manchester Orchestra), to name only a few. Career-spanning looks at Jennings’ eventful production history can now be heard on Spotify and Apple Music.
“The case for Shooter Jennings as one of the premier producers in music grows more compelling by the day,” wrote Rolling Stone in a recent feature acknowledging his continually evolving body of work. Named Hot New Producer” in Rolling Stone‘s 2020 “Hot List” issue, Jennings honed his production skills helming sessions from such iconic artists as Jamey Johnson, Wanda Jackson, Billy Ray Cyrus, and his mom, Jessi Colter. The 65th Annual GRAMMY Awards saw him received his second career “Best Americana Album” award, honoring his work as co-producer with Dave Cobb on Brandi Carlile’s chart-topping In These Silent Days – Jennings’ second consecutive GRAMMY Award for his critically acclaimed work with Carlile and longtime collaborator Cobb following 2018’s By The Way, I Forgive You, a landmark release which earned worldwide accolades and the 2019 GRAMMY Award for Best Americana Album. Jennings kept up the pace with an acclaimed assortment of further productions, including Jason Boland & The Stragglers’ The Light Saw Me, Hellbound Glory’s The Immortal Hellbound Glory: Nobody Knows You, Kelsey Waldon’s No Regular Dog, and Avi Kaplan’s Floating on a Dream.
2023 saw Jennings honored with a prestigious GRAMMY Award nomination for Producer of the Year, celebrating such works as Turnpike Troubadours’ A Cat in the Rain, Julie Roberts’ Ain’t In No Hurry, Jesse Dayton’s Talkin’ Company Man Blues, Logan Ledger’s Golden State (as well as its masterful cover of the Grateful Dead’s Ripple), and Tanya Tucker’s Sweet Western Sound, the latter once again co-produced with Brandi Carlile following their work together on 2020’s While I’m Livin’, which garnered the country music legend her first-ever GRAMMY Awards for Best Country Album and Best Country Song.
The scion of American music royalty, Jennings has affirmed his own place in histories still to come as a truly limitless artist whose ambitious experimentation spans myriad genres and creative platforms, from releasing eight solo LPs, countless EPs, and founding his label and multimedia outlet, Black Country Rock, to hosting his Shooter Jennings’ Electric Rodeo” on Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country channel, and the creation of acclaimed BBS Door games (available via his own BCRGames.com).
2023 saw the release of Shooter Jennings And The Werewolves Of Los Angeles Do Zevon, an exhilarating live album celebrating the songs of the late, great Warren Zevon, available now via BCR Media. Recorded in concert at Monterey, CA’s Rebels & Renegades Music Festival, the album sees Shooter Jennings and the Werewolves of Los Angeles – which includes multi-instrumentalist Brian Whelan (Dwight Yoakum, Jim Lauderdale) alongside longtime Jennings collaborators drummer Jamie Douglass, bassist Ted Russell Kamp, and guitarist John Schreffler – breaking out 11 wall-to-wall Zevon favorites including a rousing rendition of Zevon’s timeless anthem of desperation, “Lawyers, Guns and Money,” streaming now at YouTube following its exclusive premiere via Rolling Stone. An official live performance video for “Excitable Boy” is streaming now across all platforms.
Along with his hectic studio career, Jennings also found time to collaborate with actor James Woods on 2024’s Hear The Thunder Crack: The Life of James Woods Sung by Shooter Jennings, an expansive poetic journey into the mind and life of the Hollywood icon. Recorded at Dave's Room Studios in North Hollywood, CA, with James and the Highway Storm Orchestra over a period of three years, Jennings weaved lyrics and poetry written by Woods into a sweeping musical biography available now HERE.
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