Grew up in the seventies, listening to great songwriters instead of disco. That's very important, I think, to the successful upbringing of any child. When babysitters would arrive with Abba records under their arm, I would disappear to my room with a Willie Nelson tape.
From there nothing much happened, musically speaking, until high school (first band-- Navajo Ghost, spectacular garage-rock) which was followed by a quiet spell from 1992 until 1999, during which I wrote songs. Some of them appeared on Devils & Crows, my first record, which was released in 1999.
Hellbound, my second disc, came out in 2002, followed by Broken Hearts & Bitter Ends in 2004, Love, Money & Revenge in 2006, and two albums in 2008: The studio gem The Dark Side Of Red and the live Hellbent: Lawson Live. The critics loved everything, except for a woman named Laurie from "Rambles" who thought Devils & Crows was incredibly depressing.
Just Plain Folks is the world's largest music organization, with over 40,000 members worldwide. It's a good group of people. So far my first four discs have collectively received 13 nominations from JPF for their annual music awards, with Hellbound and Love, Money & Revenge each winning for Traditional Folk Album Of The Year, in 2002 and 2006. JPF also honored me with "Lyricist Of The Year" in 2006.
I think if I'd been raised on disco things would have turned out very differently.
Where was Shandy today? I even asked our lord and savior Jesus Christ where that nice no-longer bearded fellow who wanders about the halls of Media Park was this fine day. You missed the sweet Chrystler (with tape player, thank you very much!) I was rockin' today due to UJU being in the shop.
In other news, I like the look of the new site...all swanky and fresh on shandylawson. com.
