About me: Dead Country Singer and Artist and Designer
now writing screenplay of Trailer Star the film..see blog entries above..
TRAILER STAR
The strange tale of the late great Thames Valley Country Blues artist..
Born in a thunderstorm somewhere in the middle of the Thames Valley sometime before the fifties ended and the sixties started swinging 'Trailer Star' also known as the 'Legendary Thames Valley Cowboy is a fictional character created by myself, Shaun Belcher, artist, poet and sometime musician.
From the mid 1980's when I painted record sleeves for Creation records and started obsessing over American songwriters like Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Peter Case and bluesmen like Mississippi John Hurt and Lightning Hopkins I have written songs...literally thousands of them....
These ended up on a series of cassette only releases with titles like Last Farmer of Rattledown Row and Black River from the mid 1980s through to 1990s. Finally a limited edition Floodplain Demos CD was released in 2001 which is where the Trailer Star character first appeared. From 1999 until 2004 I edited and designed the online songwriting webzine Flyin Shoes Review named after the Townes Van Zandt album of the same name which concentrated on solo artists in the folk, blues and Americana vein.
After a few years playing live in the early 1990s with The High Priests (a messy three piece garage blues band like an early White Stripes) I realised that others would sing some of these songs better than me and after showing some artistes my archive of songs the charity CD 'Moon Over The Downs' resulted. Fifteen Americana U.S. and U.K. acts created a tribute to the 'star that never was'. These included Deanna Varagona of Lambchop, Jim Roll, Bob Cheevers, Terry Clarke and Ronny Elliott with interpretations that ranged across folk, blues and country.
I had cut my fictional Trailer Stars career abruptly short when his pick-up truck left a blind bend one frosty night on the downs near his trailer. But I could not let the story end there and his ghost continues to play.
Trailer Star lives in his late great form and I continue to release his collected works on the internet through the official Trailer Star archives at various sites.( see below)
Trailer Star is also the fictional host from the Trailer Star Lounge of an Americana podcast Flyinshoes Radio which comes out roughly every two weeks and can be downloaded from itunes etc. Again like the webzine I concentrate on songwriting.
Maybe one day Trailer will feature in his own novel/film but for now thanks for listening and please consider purchasing the Moon Over The Downs tribute as all proceeds go to Cancer Research UK.
Shaun Belcher (a.k.a. Trailer Star)
Available online through these sites are the Threat of Rain E.P. and 'The Orange Capri Demos'.
Meanwhile enjoy the site dedicated to the legendary Trailer Star... born in a thunderstorm....bluer than the clouds when they're crying
to listen to live trailer star on FLYINSHOES RADIO
