Shooter Jennings - The Wolf

'I love real country music, and I want to see country music last forever,' says Shooter Jennings, son of country legend Waylon Jennings. 'I don't want to bring down the system - I want to perpetuate it.'

Jennings knows his new 2007 album The Wolf isn't exactly mainstream country, but he wouldn't mind a little love from the mainstream country business.

In Jennings' view, 'the country music business is a total extension of exactly what it's like in high school. There's two or three bullies, then there are a bunch of weak people that are going to join in with the bullies that will pick on you and not accept you because they are afraid to do something different. Then there's a couple that say, 'Hey, maybe there's more to this guy.''

Universal South senior vice president and general manager Fletcher Foster said that sometimes country radio and the industry at large can have a 'missed perception'of what an artist really is or wants to be, and may think Jennings isn't interested in being part of mainstream country.

Indeed, while The Wolf is not as rife with drug references and salty language as his earlier albums, it still owns enough edgy themes and painful honesty to put it in an alternative universe from what's typically on mainstream country radio.

The lead-off single is a twang-fest version of the Dire Straits hit Walk of Life.

• This Ol' Wheel
• Tangled Up Roses
• Walk Of Life
• Old Friend
• Slow Train
• Time Management 101
• Concrete Cowboys
• Higher
• Blood From A Stone
• Last Time I Let You Down
• She Lives In Color
• The Wolf
• A Matter Of Time