Amanda Shaw

Last updated

Amanda Shaw
30th Annual Mudbug Madness - Amanda Shaw.jpg
Shaw in 2013
Background information
Birth nameAmanda Christian Amaya
Also known asAmanda Shaw
Born (1990-08-02) August 2, 1990 (age 32)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
GenresPop, Cajun, rock
Occupation(s)Singer-songwriter, actress
Instrument(s)Fiddle
Years active2002–present
Labels Rounder
Website amandashaw.com

Amanda Christian Amaya-Shaw (born August 2, 1990) [1] is an American Cajun fiddler, singer, and actress from Mandeville, Louisiana. She was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2020.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Musical training

Shaw received some of her early musical training in Southeastern Louisiana University's Community Music School. [2] She studied classical violin starting at age 4, and at 8 began playing and performing Cajun music. [3]

Shaw would have graduated from Mount Carmel Academy in New Orleans in 2008 but she opted instead to continue traveling around the country to perform. Shaw earned her G.E.D. in 2008 and planned to attend Tulane University [1] but did not enroll.

Performances

Shaw and her band, The Cute Guys, regularly perform to audiences around the world. They have toured North America, South America, and Europe. Amanda Shaw & the Cute Guys are a staple at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, performing annually. Shaw was a featured New Orleans performer on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in 2020 as well as on CNN's New Year's Eve with Don Lemon in 2018, 2019, and 2021.[ citation needed ]

Shaw performs at the French Quarter festival in New Orleans in April 2007 Amandashaw.jpg
Shaw performs at the French Quarter festival in New Orleans in April 2007

Recordings and videos

Shaw has recorded two independently released albums, Little Black Dog (2001) and I'm Not a Bubble Gum Pop Princess (2004) – the latter including traditional Cajun melodies as well as eclectic choices like The Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" (changed to "Girlfriend"). In 2006 Shaw signed with Rounder Records. Two years later she released her third album Pretty Runs Out on Rounder. [4]

Shaw has appeared in two Disney Channel original movies filmed in New Orleans: Stuck in the Suburbs (2004) and Now You See It... (2005). One of her best-known screen roles is as a principal narrator in Hurricane on the Bayou (2006), a documentary about Hurricane Katrina and the erosion of Louisiana's wetlands. Her music is featured in Hurricane along with that of co-narrator Tab Benoit and New Orleans native Allen Toussaint.

She also hosted the annual The Amanda Shaw Cajun Christmas Special on WGNO from 2017-2021.[ citation needed ]

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baton Rouge, Louisiana</span> Capital city of Louisiana, United States

Baton Rouge is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counties in other U.S. states. Since 2020, it has been the 99th-most-populous city in the United States and the second-largest city in Louisiana, after New Orleans; Baton Rouge is the 18th-most-populous state capital. According to the 2020 United States census, the city-proper had a population of 227,470; its consolidated population was 456,781 in 2020. The city is the center of the Greater Baton Rouge area—Louisiana's second-largest metropolitan area—with a population of 870,569 as of 2020, up from 802,484 in 2010.

The music of Louisiana can be divided into three general regions: rural south Louisiana, home to Creole Zydeco and Old French, New Orleans, and north Louisiana. The region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The music of the northern portion of the state starting at Baton Rouge and reaching Shreveport has similarities to that of the rest of the US South.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acadiana</span> Region in Louisiana, United States

Acadiana, also known as the Cajun Country, is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that has historically contained much of the state's Francophone population. Many inhabitants of the Cajun Country have Acadian ancestry and identify as Cajuns or Creoles. Of the 64 parishes that make up the U.S. state of Louisiana, 22 named parishes and other parishes of similar cultural environment make up this intrastate region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florida Parishes</span> Region in Louisiana, United States

The Florida Parishes, on the east side of the Mississippi River—an area also known as the Northshore or Northlake region—are eight parishes in the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Louisiana; the Florida Parishes were part of West Florida in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Unlike most of the state, this region was not part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase; it had been under British and then Spanish control since 1763.

WZRH is a radio station owned by Cumulus Media. The station, whose frequency is 92.3 MHz with an effective radiated power of 100 kW, is licensed to Laplace, Louisiana and serves the greater New Orleans and Baton Rouge metropolitan areas. Its studios are located at the Place St. Charles building in Downtown New Orleans and its main transmitter is located in Vacherie, Louisiana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justin Wilson (chef)</span> American chef, actor and writer

Justin E. Wilson was a Southern American chef and humorist known for his brand of Cajun-inspired cuisine, humor and storytelling.

<i>Hurricane on the Bayou</i> 2006 documentary film by Greg MacGillivray

Hurricane on the Bayou is an American 2006 documentary film that focuses on the wetlands of Louisiana before and after Hurricane Katrina.

The Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1947, is an orchestra located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States. The orchestra performs at the Theater for Performing Arts in the Baton Rouge River Center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Savoy</span> American musician, author, and record producer

Ann Savoy is a musician, author, and record producer.

Warren Storm was an American drummer and vocalist, known as a pioneer of the musical genre swamp pop; a combination of rhythm and blues, country and western, and Cajun music and black Creole music.

The culture of Louisiana involves its music, food, religion, clothing, language, architecture, art, literature, games, and sports. Often, these elements are the basis for one of the many festivals in the state. Louisiana, while sharing many similarities to its neighbors along the Gulf Coast, is unique in the influence of Louisian French culture, due to the historical waves of immigration of French-speaking settlers to Louisiana. Likewise, African-American culture plays a prominent role. While New Orleans, as the largest city, has had an outsize influence on Louisiana throughout its history, other regions both rural and urban have contributed their shared histories and identities to the culture of the state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joel Savoy</span> American Cajun musician and music producer

Joel Savoy is a Cajun musician and music producer from Southwest Louisiana. His father Marc Savoy, famous accordion builder and musician, and his mother, Ann Savoy, author and music producer, are well known ambassadors and supporters of preserving the Cajun culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Givers</span> American band

Givers is an indie pop group from Lafayette, Louisiana. The band is made up of vocalist and percussionist Tiffany Lamson, vocalist and guitarist Taylor Guarisco, and bassist and guitarist Josh LeBlanc. The band's origins date to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which displaced Lamson and Guarisco from their New Orleans apartment and school, leading them to return to Lafayette with little to do. The duo began playing music together, and they recruited the other members shortly before a last-minute performance at a local pub in 2008. The band came together as the result of the unplanned, improvised jam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Greely</span> Musical artist

David Greely is a professional fiddler from south Louisiana.

The Cajun Navy are informal ad hoc volunteer groups comprising private boat owners who assist in search and rescue efforts in the United States as well as offer disaster relief assistance. These groups were formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and reactivated in the aftermaths of the 2016 Louisiana floods, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, the 2018 Hidalgo County flood, Hurricane Florence, Tropical Storm Gordon, Hurricane Michael, Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Ida, and Hurricane Ian They are credited with rescuing thousands of citizens during those disasters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quiana Lynell</span> Musical artist

Quiana Lynell is an American blues and jazz singer, arranger and songwriter.

Inez Catalon was an American Creole ballad singer, who was one of the most well-known performers of the genre known as Louisiana "home music". These are a cappella versions of ballads and love songs, drinking songs, game songs, lullabies and waltzes performed by women in the home, passed down from earlier generations to provide entertainment for the family before radio and television existed. Home music is not considered part of the public performance repertoire of Cajun and zydeco music because the songs were sung in the home by women, rather than in the dance halls of southwestern Louisiana which featured almost exclusively male performers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady Tambourine</span> American gospel musician from Louisiana

Rosalie Marie Ashton-Washington, known as Lady Tambourine, is an American gospel musician from Louisiana, known for her skill at the tambourine.

References

  1. 1 2 Spera, Keith (August 1, 2008). "Hurricane party". The Times-Picayune . p. Lagniappe section, 18. Archived from the original on August 19, 2009. Retrieved January 15, 2023.
  2. Christina Chapple, Fanfare/Columbia season again offers "something for everyone" (accessed 2009 September 04).
  3. Wirt, John (November 21, 2003). "Young fiddler Amanda Shaw revels in 'fun' of Cajun music". The Advocate. Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
  4. "Damien Rice, Amanda Shaw have new CDs". Today.com. January 1, 2008. Retrieved January 26, 2008.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. "Amanda Shaw". Facebook.com. Retrieved January 8, 2020.

Other source