- Shaboozey’s new album, The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales, is out now.
- The concept album features cameos by Jamie Foxx, Teyana Taylor, Leon Bridges, Orville Peck, and more.
- Sam Elliott’s voiceover is getting a lot of attention from country music fans.
Shaboozey released his fourth studio album, The Outlaw Cherie Lee & Other Western Tales, on Friday, July 31, and fans can’t help but applaud the revenge-driven concept album who tells the story of Cherie Lee, a sheriff’s daughter on a mission to hunt down the outlaws that killed her father. As uniquely captivating as the 20-track project is from start to finish, one song (or voice-over, rather) stands out.
In addition to bringing Jamie Foxx, Teyana Taylor, Leon Bridges, Gunna, Kehlani, and Orville Peck into the fold, Shaboozey convinced Sam Elliott to help bring the album’s story to life.
Track 14—“Don’t Count Down (With Sam Elliott)”—is a segue between “Bullets & Blades” (featuring Kehlani) and “Lone Survivor.” The track opens with heavy footsteps, reminiscent of a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood standoff, followed by Sam’s instantly recognizable drawl. “Time’s Up, outlaw!” he says, verbally painting the picture of a classic Western showdown. “Your rope’s run short. Someone’s gotta pay for all the blood you took. It’s only you and us now. The rest of your bootcut boys are dead. The way I see it, you’ve got two choices—stand down now and turn yourself in, or die here, lying down like a dog. You’ve got ‘til the count of five.”
As popular as Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” is, and as much as it solidified his space on the country music map, fans feel like this new project is not only his best work yet, but something that will make him go down in history in the genre. “This whole album is a masterpiece,” one Instagrammer commented on Shaboozey’s release-day post. “You got me feeling like a deep south, horse riding, tobacco spitting outlaw! Great album,” another fan commented. “C’mon, man. You got me going through a whole range of emotions… I love it! This album is a masterpiece as promised. You are so gifted,” someone else exclaimed. “Elite storytelling,” another fan wrote. “Album of the year,” someone else proclaimed.
Leading up to the album’s release, Shaboozey sat down with Cody Alan on SiriusXM’s The Highway to reflect on the project and the chance to work with Sam. “It's crazy—you know, obviously Tombstone legend, and just a Western legend in general; I feel like I just had to get him on the album,” he revealed. “People always ask me, ‘What's your dream collab?’ I would probably say Jamie Foxx and Sam Elliott. So, being in the studio with him and watching him do that was mind-blowing.”
Rebecca Norris is a full-time freelance writer living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Over the past 10+ years, she’s heavily covered a range of lifestyle topics, including travel, home, beauty, style, wellness, and celebrity news. She is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a B.A. in Media: Production, Consumption, and Critique, along with a minor in Electronic Journalism. When she's not writing, she can be found strolling with her Jack-Chi, Cash, sipping iced matcha lattes, indulging in delicious cuisine, perusing farmer’s markets and antique sales, collecting colored glass, getting lost within the pages of a book, and exploring new bucket-list cities.
