Mem Shannon | |
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 Mem Shannon in 2012 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | December 21, 1959 New Orleans, Louisiana, United States |
| Genres | Blues |
| Labels | NorthernBlues Music |
Mem Shannon (born December 21, 1959, in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States) [1] is an American blues musician. He is currently signed to Toronto's NorthernBlues Music. Shannon is a former taxi-cab driver turned bluesman. [2] [3]
Shannon played both clarinet and guitar by the age of fifteen, due to being inspired by his father's collection of blues records. However, he started seriously practicing only after seeing B.B. King. [1]
After playing in local bands for several years and enjoying local success, his father died in 1981 and he took a job driving a cab in order to help his family pay bills. His music career was put on hold until 1990, when he began playing in local clubs at the urging of a former bassist.
In the early 1990s, he formed a group called Mem Shannon and the Membership, who won a spot playing at the 1991 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Later in 1991, they competed for a spot at the Long Beach Blues Festival, but lost in the final round of the talent contest and did not get to appear. [1]
In 1995, after being impressed with a demo tape that Shannon had recorded, Joe Boyd of Hannibal Records contacted Shannon, and his first album, A Cab Driver's Blues, was released on October 15, 1995. [4] Songs on the album featured snippets of actual conversations from his customers while in the cab. [3] In April 1996, Shannon announced that he was giving up driving his cab in order to make playing music his full-time job. [5]
His song "S.U.V." (2002), won Living Blues magazine's Critics Poll Song of the Year, [6] as well as receiving a Blues Music Award nomination for song of the year. [7]
Shannon appeared as himself in the 2008 novel, Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry. He is one of several real-world celebrities who are in the fictional town of Pine Deep when monsters attack. Other celebrities included Tom Savini, Jim O'Rear, Brinke Stevens, Ken Foree, Stephen Susco, Debbie Rochon, James Gunn and Joe Bob Briggs. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] Shannon's name and persona appear coincidentally in two horror novels: Fat White Vampire Blues by Andrew Fox and the aforementioned Bad Moon Rising.
Joshua Scott "JC" Chasez is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He started his career as a singer on The Mickey Mouse Club (1991–1994) before rising to stardom as a member of the 1990s boy band NSYNC. The band has sold over 70 million records, becoming one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. Chasez released his debut single "Blowin' Me Up " in 2002, following NSYNC's decision to go on a hiatus earlier that year. Schizophrenic, his debut solo album, was released in 2004. Chasez has written and produced for a wide variety of music acts such as Liam Payne, Diplo, Backstreet Boys, McFly, Sugababes, Victoria Duffield, and Matthew Morrison. He also served as a judge on the first seven seasons of America's Best Dance Crew.
Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd, better known as Professor Longhair or "Fess" for short, was an American singer and pianist who performed New Orleans blues. He was active in two distinct periods, first in the heyday of early rhythm and blues and later in the resurgence of interest in traditional jazz after the founding of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1970. His piano style has been described as "instantly recognizable, combining rumba, mambo, and calypso".
Malcolm John Rebennack Jr., better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer and songwriter. His music combined New Orleans blues, jazz, funk, and R&B.
R. L. Burnside was an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He played music for much of his life but received little recognition before the early 1990s. In the latter half of that decade, Burnside recorded and toured with Jon Spencer, garnering crossover appeal and introducing his music to a new fan base in the punk and garage rock scenes.
Ken Foree is an American actor, best known as the protagonist Peter from the horror film Dawn of the Dead (1978) and as Roger Rockmore on the Nickelodeon television sitcom Kenan & Kel (1996–2000).
Thomas Vincent Savini is an American prosthetic makeup artist, actor, stunt performer and film director. He is known for his makeup and special effects work on many films directed by George A. Romero, including Martin, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Creepshow, and Monkey Shines; he also created the special effects and makeup for many cult classics like Friday the 13th, Maniac, The Burning, The Prowler, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Tab Benoit is an American blues guitarist, musician, and singer. His playing combines a number of blues styles, primarily Delta blues.
"Bad Moon Rising" is a 1969 song by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
"Bad Moon Rising" is a song written by John Fogerty and performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was the lead single from their album Green River and was released on April 16, 1969 four months before the album. The song peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on 28 June 1969 and reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks in September of that year. It was CCR's second gold single.
Debbie Ann Rochon is a Canadian actress and former stage performer, best known for her work in independent horror films and counterculture films.
Brinke Stevens is an American actress. A native of San Diego, Stevens initially pursued a career as a marine biologist prior to becoming an actress, earning an undergraduate degree in biology from San Diego State University before studying marine biology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Unable to find employment in the field of biology, Stevens began modeling in Los Angeles in 1980, and she worked as a film extra.
Overton Amos Lemons, known as Smiley Lewis, was an American New Orleans rhythm and blues singer and guitarist. The music journalist Tony Russell wrote that "Lewis was the unluckiest man in New Orleans. He hit on a formula for slow-rocking, small-band numbers like 'The Bells Are Ringing' and 'I Hear You Knocking' only to have Fats Domino come up behind him with similar music with a more ingratiating delivery. Lewis was practically drowned in Domino's backwash."
Jonathan Maberry is an American suspense author, anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. He was named one of the Today's Top Ten Horror Writers.
Scott Billington is an American record producer, songwriter, record company executive and blues musician.
Stephen Susco is an American screenwriter, producer, and director. He is best known for writing horror films such as The Grudge, The Grudge 2, and Texas Chainsaw 3D. His directorial debut film, Unfriended: Dark Web, had its premiere at SXSW on March 9, 2018.
The Pine Deep Trilogy is a series of supernatural horror novels by Jonathan Maberry. The series is set in Pine Deep, a fictional rural Pennsylvania town that becomes plagued by an evil force thought previously killed thirty years ago. In the books the town is considered to be "the most haunted town in America" and has a booming supernatural tourism industry based around the town's history and Halloween. The trilogy is composed of Ghost Road Blues, Dead Man's Song, and Bad Moon Rising.
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David Lastie, Sr. was an American jazz and rhythm & blues saxophonist, bandleader, and composer from the musical Lastie family who played and recorded for more than thirty years.
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