Jessi Colter Renews Outlaw Roots With New Album ‘Edge of Forever’

When outlaw country royalty speaks, it’s best to listen.

Jessi Colter is making a statement with the announcement of her new album, Edge of Forever, coming Oct. 27 on Appalachia Recording Co. The project was produced by Margo Price and mixed by Shooter Jennings, Colter’s son with the late Waylon Jennings. It includes never-before-heard songs written by Colter and Waylon in the 1970s, songs drawn from sheet music discovered in an old briefcase, newer compositions influenced by Colter’s gospel leanings, and collaborations with her daughter, Jenni Eddy Jennings, and Price.

Jessi Colter (photo by Chris Phelps)

Edge of Forever is Colter’s 13th studio album, following 2017’s The Psalms, a musical exploration of the Bible produced by Lenny Kaye, who met Colter in the 1990s while working with Jennings on his memoir.

“It was really sheer enjoyment for me to be able to do,” Colter says in a press release announcing the new album, “because I really hadn’t planned anything much further. Edge of Forever is a love project.” Some of that love is directed toward Price, whom Colter befriended in 2017.

“When the force of nature that is Jessi Colter rolled into my life and picked me up in her Mercedes convertible, I knew I was in for a wild ride,” Price adds. “When I felt lost, I could call on her and she would pray for me — with me. Jessi has such a strong faith, it’s inspiring to be near her. When she sang ‘Standing on the Edge of Forever’ and ‘Angel in the Fire’ back-to-back for me, I was blown away. It was such refined writing, the work of someone who had been continuously, quietly honing her craft. I knew she had to make another album and told her I would love to be a part of that experience.”

“Standing on the Edge of Forever” is the opening track of the album and its first single release. Featuring Price, it’s a rock and roller with a psychedelic flavor, underpinned by organ strains that keeps gospel in mind, too.

Colter staked her claim in the outlaw country canon in the 1970s, the only woman featured on the platinum-selling Wanted! The Outlaws compilation album. She’d already gone platinum by that time with her 1975 single “I’m Not Lisa.” Born Miriam Johnson, she borrowed her stage name from Jess Colter, an 1870s train robber in the family. She grew up playing piano for tent revivals led by her minister mother.

In 2017 Colter published an autobiography titled An Outlaw and a Lady: A Memoir of Music, Life with Waylon, and the Faith That Brought Me Home (ND story).

Here is the track list for Edge of Forever:

1. Standing on the Edge of Forever
2. I Wanna Be With You (feat. Margo Price)
3. Hard on Easy Street
4. Lost Love Song (feat. Margo Price)
5. Angel in the Fire
6. Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus
7. With or Without You
8. Fine Wine
9. Maybe You Should (feat. Margo Price)
10. Secret Place (feat. Jenni Eddy Jennings)