Morgan Wallen took a page from The Beatles’ book to celebrate his album’s first anniversary.
Wallen, 30, released the Abbey Road Sessions project on Sunday, March 3, marking one year since he released One Thing at a Time, his massively successful album that spent 18 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the top of the Billboard charts.
The project, released on YouTube, contains two unreleased songs— “Lies Lies Lies” and a cover of Nothing But Thieves’ “Graveyard Whistling” — and five live performances of songs from One Thing at a Time: “Thinkin’ Bout Me,” “Sunrise,” “Everything I love,” “I Wrote the Book” and “I Deserve a Drink.”
“Playing the O2 in London last fall and getting to record at Abbey Road, where so much iconic music has been made, was legendary for me and my band. We will never forget it,” Wallen said in a press release. “I’m so excited to release these Abbey Road Sessions for my fans on the one-year anniversary of One Thing at a Time. They make all this possible.”
One Thing at a Time has tied Garth Brooks’ Ropin’ the Wind for most weeks at No. 1 for a country album. It could easily break that tie on a good week: as of March 4, it sits at No. 3, behind Yeat’s 2093 and Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 1.
In January, Wallen spoke after an alleged new song leaked on the Internet. Wallen said he took a break from “a duck hunting trip” to clear the air. In 2014, he went to Florida to “try my hand at making original music [and] songwriting for the first time. This led to a recording deal with a local investor and an artist management deal that I deeply regret. Unfortunately, I signed both deals without any legal representation.”
During that time, Wallen made 13 songs without any creative control. He noted that some songs were “ok, most were terrible,” and only five tracks made it to his debut EP, Stand Alone.
“Tonight, those colleagues I parted ways with almost 10 years ago plan to release a ‘10th anniversary’ edition of Stand Alone against my wishes and include eight unreleased songs, distributing them with the assistance of my former managers,” he wrote. Wallen said he had been “exploring every avenue possible” to acquire the rights to this old music, to keep the songs from being released as to maintain “the quality of my catalog consistent with songs I choose to release & believe in.”
In response to the alleged music, Morgan released “Spin You Around (1/24).” He also pledged to donate $100k to the Morgan Wallen Foundation to the Volunteer Lawyers and Professionals for the Arts (VLPA) program so that new artists don’t wind up making the same mistakes he did.
