Shenandoah Release Mini Documentary On “Sunday In The South” Collab With Jason Aldean & Luke Bryan

A little behind the scenes on how the recent “Sunday In The South” music video came to be.

Back in December, we all got a little update on the 1989 country music hit “Sunday in the South.” The original song was the third single from Shenandoah’s sophomore album The Road Not Taken, and it quickly became the band’s second number one single after topping the chart with “Church On Cumberland Road” earlier in 1989.

If you ask me, Shenandoah is one of the most underrated country acts of all time. Marty Raybon was the lead vocalist (and played guitar) while Mike McGuire played the drums (and provided backing vocals). Together, along with a couple of other band members, they were the 1980s and 1990s country music powerhouse known as Shenandoah. Now, the original members in Raybon and McGuire have reunited to continue on the band’s legacy.

As of late, that’s come in the form of rereleasing their number one hit “Sunday in the South.” Shenandoah called upon Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean to help them out with a fresh new take on the track, which they released in September of 2024. A couple of months later, they put out a music video to go with the newer version of the song.

Which you can view here:

Pretty cool crossover if you ask me.

And today, Shenandoah shared a mini-documentary that gave fans a behind the scenes look on how that music video came to be. There was more than meets in the eye in the music video, which was filmed at the Country Boy Restaurant in Leipers Fork, Tennessee. Apparently they had some other cameras there dedicated to putting together an inside look at how their updated “Sunday in the South” came to be.

Shenandoah first reflected on how it’s been over 35 years since they released the track, and then Marty Raybon explained how they got Luke Bryan and Jason Aldean involved with the project:

“While having the opportunity of being invited to be part of Luke Bryan’s 30 Number One Records event, I got the opportunity to chat with Jason for a little bit, and of course chat with Luke. While we were back stage, I mentioned to Jason, ‘Look we just cut a brand new track on Sunday in the South and I recall several times where people would send us videos of you all doing Sunday in the South at some of your shows. It would tickle us to death if you all were to come in and be a part of this new cut we’ve got on it.’”

And it was really as simple as that.

Bryan and Aldean were honored to be asked, and as the “Play It Again” singer explained, the song – and Shenandoah itself – meant a lot to both artists. Luke also mentioned that when he and Aldean were touring together, “Sunday in the South” was a crowdpleaser that they always found themselves going back to:

“Back when we were touring (together) years ago on our little satellite B-stage, Jason and I would do this song. My earliest memories are just a song that was speaking exactly to my life. I remember being a kid and hearing the lyrics of that and really understanding it as speaking to how I was growing up.”

As for Aldean, the Georgia native noted that the track struck a chord with him at a very young age, all because it was so representative of what he was going through at the time:

“It just embodied where we’re from in Georgia. It was very relatable. When you grow up in the south down there and you hear a song like this that’s talking about how our parents were raising us at the time… it was cool. And country music was super hot at that time too, so it was really cool to hear something on the radio that you could relate to that much.”

In the interviews included in the mini documentary, it’s clear that both Bryan and Aldean were both over the moon to have a small part in this new rendition of the country classic. Jason even added that it was a full circle moment for both artists to sit across the table from Shenandoah and share in this song for the music video:

“It’s been wild to get to come into this business and get to work with guys we grew up listening to. When they ask us to do stuff, it’s crazy. It’s crazy they want to do that and it’s just always an honor for us to get to work with those guys.”

You can find out more about how the reinvented song came to be in the mini documentary below:

And hey, while you’re here, you really owe it to yourself to fire up the original music video from 1989. Aldean even mentioned the original, “Sepia toned” music video in the documentary above.

To put thing simply, they just don’t make music videos like they used to:

The post Shenandoah Release Mini Documentary On “Sunday In The South” Collab With Jason Aldean & Luke Bryan first appeared on Whiskey Riff.