Happy Birthday, Mem Shannon!
John Dunlop
Blues guitarist, singer and songwriter Mem Shannon was born in New Orleans on December 21, 1959, and played both clarinet and guitar by the age of fifteen, due to being inspired by his father's collection of blues records. He started seriously practicing only after seeing B.B. King, and ultimately played in local bands for several years and enjoyed success locally. He took a job driving a cab and put his music career on hold in order to help his family pay bills after his father passed away in 1981.
In 1990 he began playing in local clubs again, and in the early 1990s, he formed a group called Mem Shannon and the Membership, who played at the 1991 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. His first album, A Cab Driver's Blues, was released on October 15, 1995, and featured snippets of actual conversations from his customers while in the cab. In April 1996, Shannon announced that he was giving up driving his cab in order to make playing music his full-time job. He toured extensively around the U.S., Europe, and Canada. Shannon was the first major new talent to come out of New Orleans in some time, and since thousands of foreigners visit New Orleans every spring for JazzFest, Shannon forged his reputation as an international touring musician easily. His music isn't stuck in a jump-shuffle mode. He takes a broader view, incorporating elements of funk, jazz, swamp rock, and classic rock into the Membership's blues-based sound. His song "S.U.V." (2002), won Living Blues magazine's Critics Poll Song of the Year, as well as receiving a Blues Music Award nomination for song of the year. Today let’s wish this New Orleans original a very happy birthday!
Photo: robbiesaurus - Flickr: Mem Shannon, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23150424