Shenandoah has a new version of one of their biggest hits, out now. The iconic group released a remake of “Sunday in the South,” a No. 1 hit in 1989, this one with Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean. The song was originally on Shenandoah’s sophomore The Road Not Taken album.
Both Bryan and Aldean also star in the new video as well, which was filmed at Country Boy Restaurant in Leipers Fork, Tennessee. The video also features some of the legendary landmarks in Muscle Shoals that were in the original music video, released 35 years ago.
“Having Jason and Luke on this song has certainly been a highlight for us,” says Shenandoah frontman Marty Raybon. “This song has always ministered to us in such a special way.”
Both Bryan and Aldean grew up influenced by Shenandoah, so it was a full-circle moment for the two to join Raybon and Mike McGuire on the classic country hit.
“My earliest memories of ‘Sunday in the South’ is that it was a song that was speaking exactly my life,” says Bryan. “This song shaped the way I thought about music and how I wanted to make music one day.“
“It’s just always an honor for us to get to work with these guys we grew up listening to,” adds Aldean.
“Sunday in the South” follows Shenandoah’s collaboration with Luke Combs on “Two Dozen Roses,” which hit No. 1 on the iTunes all-genre chart and on the country chart as well. Combs had already been performing “Two Dozen Roses” during his live shows, which is what prompted Raybon to ask him to join them on a new version of their previous hit.
“People would send us videos of him performing the song live and we thought, ‘How cool would it be to have Luke record the song with us?’” Raybon told Billboard.
Last year, Raybon hinted that Shenandoah had a lot of new music they were excited to release in the near future.
“I don’t know exactly when the album’s coming out,” Raybon told Everything Nash. “We’re working on some more tunes. We have some guests that are gonna come by, and a lot of times when you do stuff like that, it depends on what their schedule will allow. We’ve got about two or three things now that we want to single … We feel like we have the stuff that we could put out so that folks can hear some of the new stuff.”
As with all of their other music, Raybon says fans can expect the new music to be positive and uplifting. It’s been one of the trademarks of Shenandoah’s music ever since their self-titled debut album came out in 1987.
“We’ve always tried to relate to the things that have been positive,” Raybon said. “We can sing all the negative, but we just choose not to do that. We don’t want to sing about drinking and cheating and running around and all that other kind of stuff. I’m not any better than anybody else, but as my daddy said, ‘Son, keep your nose clean.’ So that’s where we’re at with it. We just think there’s a lot of good and positive things that can be sung about like ‘Somewhere In the Vicinity of the Heart,’ ‘Moon Over Georgia,’ stuff like that. That’s where we are.”.
Find “Sunday in the South” and all of Shenandoah’s music at ShenandoahBand.com.