There’s a lot of folks in the music industry that will tell you they can help you get a leg up, or they knowa guy who knows a guy, so when The Waymores heard about legendary producer, Shel Talmy not onlyenjoying their music but wanting to work with them, they chalked it up to being talk out of school. “Anintroductory email was sent and I saw Shel Talmy’s name pop up on my phone and thought someonewas punking me” Annalise says. Through their sophomore album, Stone Sessions, word had spreadacross the country from their home in Atlanta GA all the way, in this case, to Los Angeles, Californiawhere actor and restaurateur Harry Zinn hears The Waymores and shares the songs with his good friendShel.Shel Talmy is a record producer, songwriter and arranger best known for his 1960’s work with The Who,The Kinks, David Bowie and many others. In an interview with musician/producer/songwriter ArtieWayne, Talmy says “I’m a hands-on producer, meaning that I always work with the artist on choosingmaterial, doing the arrangements, getting musicians if necessary, choosing the studio and being therefor the entire production on through the mixes and mastering.” That’s exactly what’s happened herewith The Waymores. Quickly after the introductory email, Shel sent Neal and Annalise a list of oldcountry tunes stating that “none of these have been recorded in at least 40 years” and that “a newrecording of any of them would be well received.”“We wanted to choose all of the songs he sent, honestly but we knew our time and budget would belimited so we picked two with the thought that we could put out a 45.” Neal continues with “Eventhough we’d spoken to him on the phone and were emailing ideas back and forth, it was still very hardfor us to believe that this was actually happening.” The Waymores are on Chicken Ranch Records, anIndie label out of Austin, TX and they tour about 150-200 days a year doing all of the bookingthemselves, so to the outside world, it didn’t seem too far-fetched that a huge opportunity like this onewas on the horizon.So, what do you do when you’re a touring band based in Atlanta and you need to get to LA for a fewdays to record? You book a tour, and that’s exactly what The Waymores did. In mid June, the duostarted the trek to California hitting Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona along the way.As if Shel Talmy’s resume alone wasn’t enough, the session was engineered by Grammy award winningguitar player, composer, engineer and songwriter Johnny Lee Schell. Johnny has worked with dozens ofartists including Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, BB King and Delbert McClinton. His state of the arthome studio in Studio City, CA is where the session took place. “I was sick with nerves the whole ridethere. I thought for sure we were in over our heads” Annalise starts and Neal continues “We walkedthrough the studio door to the players already setting up and shuffling around. In a room full of talentthat was well deserving of ego, we found nothing but welcome arms and got right to work.”The Waymores spent two days at Schell’s studio recording Marty Robbins’ Don’t Worry and BuckOwens’ Under Your Spell. On Steel Guitar was Dave Pearlman, who has toured with Merle Haggard andHoyt Axton amongst others and is the creator of Pearlman Microphones which were used during thesession. Terry Wilson played Bass Guitar on the two tracks. He is also credited for his work withAlejandro Escovedo and Townes Van Zandt amongst dozens of others. The aptly named Phil Parlapiano,who toured with Joan Baez, played for John Prine for nearly a decade and went on to play for RodStewart played Piano in the session. On drums was Tony Braunagel who is best known as a sessiondrummer and/or percussionist of over 200 albums including Grammy winning albums of Bonnie Raitt, TajMahal, Buddy Guy (percussion) and for performing live with dozens of music icons including BB King,Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Lyle Lovett, and Taj Mahal to name just a few. Tony and Terry were alsoin the house studio band for Island Records. The two tracks were recorded live, which was a first for TheWaymores but as they tell it “It will be the standard from here on out.”“We still look down every now and then to make sure our feet are touching the floor. The caliber ofmusicians in that room had the potential to be wildly intimidating but we were so welcomed and treated asequals. The whole experience was one that we will cherish for the rest of our days and the outcome issomething of which we are beyond proud.”