It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive characteristics.
- James Weldon Johnson (American anthologist of black culture, Poet and Diplomat. 1871-1938)
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Shawn Pittman Live at The Muddy Waters, Sep 22
Shawn Pittman
The Mississippi Valley Blues Society presents the Texas blues of Shawn Pittman on Wednesday September 22 at The Muddy Waters, 1708 State Street, Bettendorf. The show starts at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $7, $5 for blues society members.
Shawn Pittman is James Dean meets the Vaughans: Torn white T-shirt, slicked-back hair, and chiseled Dean features preside over intense Texas guitar. Pittman commands his guitar to speak the string-slingin' language of the Lone Star State. Sure there's Jimmie and Stevie, but the influences of Albert King, Buddy Guy, and young guns such as Smokin' Joe Kubek and Mike Morgan also are present in his playing..—Art Tipaldi, Blues Revue
Shawn Pittman was born in Oklahoma on October 13, 1974. The first music he remembers hearing was his grandmother playing boogie piano and his dad’s 8-track tapes of Buddy Holly. When he was a teenager he discovered Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker. Then he listened to Anson Funderburgh and Mike Morgan, and he decided he had to go to Texas.
At 17, Shawn moved to Dallas. He learned from Hash Brown and watched guitarists like Tutu Jones and Jim Suhler. He played as a sideman with the Bramhall Brothers and Mike Morgan, and then he met up with drummer Jason Moeller (The Fabulous Thunderbirds) and Paul Size (The Red Devils), from whom he learned even more about the blues.
