Amanda Shaw
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Amanda Shaw

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
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"Tammany Talk: Amanda Shaw Plays Mandeville Live!"

Amanda Shaw, a St. Tammany native, may be a homegirl at heart, but she keeps her feet on the road and her hands on the fiddle. The 21-year old fiddling wiz plays the French Quarter Festival today, but the dust will have hardly settled before she’ll be headed back to St. Tammany.

SUSAN POAG / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE ARCHIVE Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys are set to perform today at the French Quarter Festival, then Friday at 6:30 p.m. at Mandeville Live!

Her band, Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys, play Mandeville Live! on Friday, 6:30 p.m., at the Mandeville Trailhead, 675 Lafitte St. Gates open at 6 p.m.

Then, she’s back across Lake Pontchartrain to play Rock N’ Bowl on Saturday; the popular Wednesday in the Square on April 25; and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell on April 28.

Shaw was raised and lives in west St. Tammany, but attended Mount Carmel High School in New Orleans where she graduated in 2008. She’s known as a New Orleans musician, and her music draws on the deep musical roots of the region.

Shaw began playing at age 4 after she saw an orchestra on TV.

“I saw a violin, and turned to my mom and said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”

She took classical violin lessons and began playing professionally at the age of 8, but doesn’t consider herself a child prodigy. There is no one turning point in her career that she attributes to her success, just small steps she’s taken every day to reach her goal of being a respected musician and artist.

“I live for every day. You start with a band, and get your own gigs and work and work. You make little goals for yourself and build upon them.”
It’s the music that feeds her passion for the fiddle, and her hard work that has earned her respect in the music community. And she’s been embraced by musicians in many genres.

"Fiddle players in Cajun bands would teach me traditional songs because they’re not written down. Between sets they’d play it for me, and I’d play it back until I got it right,” she remembers.

She calls George Porter Jr., Rockin’ Dopsie, the late Marva Wright and others by name and considers them like family. “When Marva would have those strokes, our families would get together and watch the Saints games,” she said.

“I’ve always been an entertainer,” she said, and the audiences love the music. “That’s what makes my audiences and fans awesome.”

That love is now worldwide. After graduating from high school, she made four tours of Europe and toured two years with Hurricane on the Bayou. She said there were times she would come home on a Sunday morning for some down time “then by 4 p.m. I’d be flying out on another plane.”

She has thoughts of someday pursuing college, but so far has not had the time.
“I’m having so much fun, I can’t wait to see what happens next,” she said.

She’s writing and working on another CD but is between labels. Her first CD was on Rounder Records. In 2010, her fourth album release, “Good Southern Girl,” was the top-selling CD at Jazzfest.

She looks forward to bringing her music to her hometown. The Cute Guys are Tim Robertson on guitar; Mike Barras, drums; and Ronnie Falgout on bass.

“We have lots of fun, always,” Shaw said.

And no matter how far this St. Tammany girl roams, she said, “People here at home are with me all the way. - Tammany Community News


"Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Top Pick: Amanda Shaw And The Cute Guys"


Hardly Strictly Bluegrass top pick: Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys

By Jim Harrington
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 09/27/2012 12:09:39 PM PDT
Updated: 09/27/2012 12:09:40 PM PDT

Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys: Having drawn rave reviews at the most recent San Jose Jazz Festival, the 22-year-old Louisianan returns to the Bay for another round of blistering Cajun fiddle music. Shaw is an amazing talent, who has quickly established herself as a premiere player on the New Orleans music scene. She puts a distinctly modern twist on Cajun cooking and is known to cover such punk acts as the Ramones and the Clash.

Set time: 2:40-3:25 p.m. Oct. 7, Porch Stage

Info:

The 12th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival

When: Noon-7 p.m. Oct. 5, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Oct. 6-7

Where: Hellman Hollow, Lindley and Marx meadows in Golden Gate Park, S.F.

- SJ Mercury News


"Amanda Shaw & The Cute Guys"

AMANDA SHAW & THE CUTE GUYS

Sunday August 26th - 8:00pm

“With her amazing chops, good looks, and surprisingly mature vocal style, Shaw is on the brink of a brilliant career at an age when most girls are only interested in cute guys of another kind.” -- J. Rovi, CMT (Country Music Television)

When we saw this blazing red-haired singer/fiddler and her equally red hot band at the New Orleans French Quarter Fest this spring, we knew we had to get her up to Truro for our New Orleans Louisiana Fest this August. And here she comes! Amanda Shaw was a child prodigy, releasing her first record in 2001 at the age of 11. Today, ten years later, she is just 21 but has an amazing wealth of experience and savvy, having toured extensively and is now starting to headline at festivals throughout the country. Shaw's a classically trained violinist who decided to play traditional Cajun dance music shortly after her debut performance with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. In the years since she started playing with the Cute Guys she's become a fixture at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Her third CD, I'm Not a Bubblegum Pop Princess, has sold enough copies to remain on the Festival's Top Ten list since 2003. Her eclectic taste -- the band plays traditional Cajun dance music, rock, country, and funk-flavored R&B -- has made her a favorite in her hometown and won her guest spots on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Emeril Live, and Univision's Sabado Gigante. She cannot be pigeon-holed into only Cajun music as she has found ways to cross over her signature sound with all the gumbo that is the New Orleans music scene.

Come to the tent August 26 and see one of the stars of today’s Lousiana’s music. And get ready to dance under the colored lights of our huge dance floor!
- Payomet Performing Arts Center


"Summer Fest Preview: Amanda Shaw"

Summer Fest Preview: Amanda Shaw

In Music August 8, 2012 by Steve Palopoli

Amanda Shaw and her band The Cute Guys perform Saturday at San Jose Jazz's Summer Fest.

When Cajun rock up-and-comer Amanda Shaw belts out a punk cover—say, The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” or a gender-modified take on the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”—it’s not a novelty-type thing, like string-music versions of Metallica. Her versions, especially the Clash song, burn with the same power as the original, led by her constantly bobbing and weaving, fist-in-the-air delivery. She sings and fiddles with swagger and attitude. With authority.

Offstage, however, her personality is as far from that tough-girl stance as the bayou is from the South Bay. Shaw, who plays the Summer Fest in San Jose on Saturday, is all Southern charm, as bubbly and fun-loving as a newly minted 22-year-old (she celebrated her birthday last week) should be. This one just happens to have been playing violin since she was four and making records since she was 11. She’s beloved in her hometown of New Orleans, and two years ago Mayor Mitch Landrieu declared August 31 “Amanda Shaw Day.”

Underneath the sweetness and upstanding citizenry, though, there is definitely a punk spirit in Shaw. She admits her musical heroes are all strong and sometimes complicated women: Chrissie Hynde, Amy Winehouse, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Etta James and so on.

“I’m definitely all about the girl power,” she admits. “Even though I’m a fiddle player, I like to rock out.”

She laid this out early on in the song “I’m Not A Bubblegum Princess,” from the 2004 album of the same name. It signified a shift in her career, as she had just finished filming movies for the Disney Channel.

“It was junior high or the beginning of high school,” she says, “Early on, around that time, I had done the two Disney movies. It was fine, it was fun, but I didn’t like how some of the girls would come on and talk bad about New Orleans, even though they were filming the movie here. Or they’d come in and be like ‘look at my Chanel shoes,’ or my Gucci bag or whatever. For me, it’s not about being a product to sell.”

Shaw has been playing Cajun music since she was eight, and has never shied away from bringing modern elements—like the Clash—into it, believing that tradition must adapt to survive. She’s committed to it, and to her community, because her community has always been committed to her.

“When I was young and starting out, there were a lot of really great musicians here who would let me sit in on their sets with my fiddle,” she says. “I was 8, 9 years old. I was classically trained, but they taught me how to really play. Not knowing the song, they’d say ‘okay, this one’s in the key of D,’ and I’d have to figure it out. George Porter Jr. and Marva Wright, people like that didn’t have to welcome me in. They’re the ones who have really continued the New Orleans tradition—you go to Europe and Marva was a superstar. They welcomed me in and helped me. It was like family.”
- MetroActive - Activate (Front Page feature in Metro Mag)


"Amanda Shaw's Louisiana"

Amanda Shaw's Louisiana

Louisiana rocks, and I'm not just talking about the clubs and festivals. You have to experience a sunset on the bayou.

By Amanda Shaw

Amanda Shaw is a rising Cajun music star in Louisiana.


It's so inspiring. If everybody could see a sunset on the bayou, maybe we would get the support we need to save the wetlands.

I would take visitors to local New Orleans shops, restaurants, and music clubs. What better way to spend time in New Orleans than enjoy the things we are known for? By shopping at local shops and eating at local restaurants, you can have a great time and put money back into the hands of New Orleans people. You'll also fall in love with city's unique culture and warm-hearted people. Also, by going out to music venues and dancing to the different beats of New Orleans great music community, you will be supporting the musicians who have played a huge part in New Orleans' recovery. You can't find this anywhere else in the world!

There's so much great food down here, it would be impossible have it all in one trip. But seafood should be at the top of the list. I would take my friends down to a fishing camp where we could catch fish and eat crabs, boil crawfish and make shrimp po-boys. Or we could go to the Ye Olde College Inn restaurant in New Orleans to enjoy some traditional dishes like crawfish etouffee or fried green tomatoes.

Just up the street from Ye Olde College Inn is one of my favorite live music spots: Mid City Lanes Rock 'n Bowl. All ages can go to bowl, eat, listen to music, and on some nights you can even catch a lesson on how to zydeco dance!

As far as musicians go, there are too many good ones to count, and every musician has their own unique style. Louisiana is such an artistic place. Jazz Fest in New Orleans offers such a wide variety of music, and French Quarter Fest is the largest free festival in the world. They both feature Louisiana's greatest musicians! Lafayette is a great place to listen to traditional Cajun music. There are a lot of fun places to go dance and eat.

Of course you can't come to Louisiana without shopping! For that, I love Magazine Street! My favorite shop is LF, where they have unique clothes for all occasions! You can't find their clothes anywhere else in the city!

If you're in New Orleans, you've got to make your way to the French Quarter. Jackson Square is absolutely beautiful! I love watching the sun set and having Cafè du Monde in the evenings.

Sometimes I like to go out to Louisiana's country, like Folsom and make a big bonfire with my friends! We sit around the fire and tell stories. I also like to go fishing down in Lafitte and eat the fish we caught. Football is another great activity! We are all about our football! Sometimes I like to go to the park and throw the football with my brother and friends. I love to hang out with friends and family and watch a Saints game. I love a good crawfish boil. - Louisianatravel.com


"Strings Attached: Fiddler Moves to National Stage While reminding Audience of New Orleans' Needs"

It wasn’t your typical 18th birthday party.

When New Orleans fiddler/singer Amanda Shaw entered formal adulthood last August, she gathered more than 800 fans and fellow musicians such as Irvin Mayfield and Waylon Thibodeaux for a concert. The event raised more than $11,000 for save-the-wetlands causes in Louisiana.

“That was a milestone for me,” Shaw says.

There already have been many milestones for Shaw, who despite being only 19 has been described as a “seasoned entertainer” and has become a fixture in the New Orleans music scene, routinely drawing large crowds to her performances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

But she’s looking to break out nationally, and she’ll play for a new audience Friday when she comes to Lawrence. Shaw is the featured performer at this year’s Outdoor Concert and Family Arts Festival at the Lied Center.

Shaw started playing violin at age 3. She first studied classical music before becoming captivated with Cajun music. She started her own band and soon gained some big-time attention, playing twice on “The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” opening for Charlie Daniels and playing on stage with Cyndi Lauper.

She also has done some acting, appearing in Disney’s “Now You See It” and “Stuck in the Suburbs,” and was a major part of the IMAX documentary “Hurricane on the Bayou.”

She says being folded into the New Orleans music scene helped nurture her young fiddle talent.

“I have to say I’ve been really lucky to live in a city that has embraced me from the time I was young,” Shaw says. “To know musicians like Rockin’ Dopsie and Chubby Carrier, and they’d let me come and sit in on a song, I’m lucky. I’ve never felt like a monkey out there. I’ve always felt from the time I was a little kid, I was being true to the music.”

Despite not having a Cajun background herself, Shaw has become a student of the traditional music form. But she’s not one to limit herself to the way things have been done in the past — her recordings also include covers of tunes by The Ramones and The Clash, among others.

“I listen to anything and everything,” she says. “I had a friend laughing at me. He was working on my mom’s car, and I had a mix CD in there. It might be Loretta Lynn, then a fiddle tune, then Janis Joplin, then Dolly Parton, then Ben Harper.”

Shaw currently is working on her fourth album, which is the first to be produced by Poorman Mayfield Music, a new label founded by Irvin Mayfield and others.

“When we first came up with the idea of starting the label, we sat around one night and said, ‘How do we create and release quality content?’” says Cedric Scott, president of the label. “Amanda, at such a young age, understands what quality is. She proves it every day. ... We already know Amanda Shaw is a star. It is our position at Poorman Mayfield Music to make sure that the rest of the world knows.”

In a city still on the rebound after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, Shaw says she’s convinced the music scene will be even better than it was before the storm.

“A lot of people felt devastated about the whole thing,” she says. “We’ve come a long way. We do need to continue to remind people of the story, and there’s a lot to do. It’s OK for people to come and visit New Orleans. Tourism is our No. 1 way to make money.”

And she notes that there are plenty of acts in plenty of genres playing every night.

“I think people appreciated it more after it was gone,” she says of New Orleans music. “When the people started to come back, the music started to come back.”

As for her and her own band, the Cute Guys, Shaw says she would love to someday be a national name. But she says she won’t go for that if it means sacrificing the quality of her music.

“Of course, my ultimate goal is to be able to make a living and be able to travel and go all over,” she says. “There would be no better feeling than to do that.” - LJWorld.com


"Amanda Shaw Closes Opening Day Of The French Quarter Festival 2012 With A Bang"

Amanda Shaw Closes Opening Day of the French Quarter Festival 2012 with a Bang

Amanda Shaw
April 14, 2012
By: Hubert Gauthier

From the time Amanda walks on the stage for a sound check, even before she begins to play you can feel the excitement in the air. The crowd shifts around, a little here, a little there with people trying to get just a little closer to the stage, then a little better eye shot of center stage. A man announces Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys, a roar comes from the audience and she is off and running.

There she is, this very attractive young red head with violin and bow in hand. But don’t let this charming young lady fool you. When she lifts her violin and begins fiddling around she is a killer musician, mingling various styles of music into her unique brand that is ‘Amanda Shaw.’ And to add the final sauce to top off this dish of her virtuostic mastery over her instrument, her unique singing style and dancing to the music as she plays is added a lethal combination of stage presence and charisma. All this combined allows her to hold the audience in the palm her hand, massage their ears and leave them satisfied, but as always in New Orleans, still wanting more.

I have watched her around New Orleans for several years at various festivals and clubs excite the crowds. And as the closing act for opening day of the 2012 French Quarter Festival on the Cajun Zydeco Showcase Stage there wasn’t much difference there. Well, there was one thing different. After announcing that she had finally reached the ripe old age of 21 she gave her fans a special treat to a premier performance of an original drinking song ‘Red Plastic Cup.’

Her band ‘The Cute Guys’ are all excellent musicians in their own right, consisting of Tim Robertson on guitar, Ronnie Falgout on bass and Mike Barras on drums. They give a solid foundation for Amanda to play and dance her way into the ears, eye, hearts and minds of the audience. In addition the crowd got to enjoy songs featuring Tim and Ronnie on vocals. The songs consisted of a mix or original songs by Amanda as well as some great cover tunes including Suzy Q, Louisiana Saturday Night, The South’s Gonna Do It Again, Should I Stay or Should I Go, and the immortal, and a an audience favorite, Charlie Daniel’s The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

This young and rising star shows great promise to continue rising and always growing brighter. If you haven’t had the pleasure of attending one or more of her performances don’t let this experience escape you much long. You can then be added to a long list of fans that when her name is mentioned respond in the same way, “she’s great.”

To find future dates and more information visit http://www.amandashaw.com.

- Examiner.com


"The Road Not Taken - Cover Story"

The Road Not Taken
01 February 2008 — by Alex Rawls


Amanda Shaw is leading her band through a driving, blues-rock tinged version of “Hot Tamale Baby.” As she dances around the stage, there’s no denying that she’s becoming one. At Voodoo just months earlier, children—her long-time audience—danced in the front row with their mothers next to dudes taking pictures of Shaw with their camera phones. But as the title song of Shaw’s new album—Pretty Runs Out-suggests, she isn’t counting on her looks:

I’m not my cowboy boots / I’m not my faded jeans
I’m not my hazel eyes or what it is you think you see.
I’m not the Body Shop / I’m not these fancy nails
I’m not those high-priced glossy, shiny details.
Read beyond the magazine pages.
They don’t tell you that a supermodel ages.

Shaw co-wrote the song with New Orleanian-in-Nashville Jim McCormick, and it might seem like 17 is a little early to sing about fading looks. But as a teenager who has also done two made for TV movies for Disney, she has dealt with 14 and 15-year-olds who were already lunching on salads with dressing on the side. And as a Louisianian from north of Lake Pontchartrain, she has always been distantly linked to Britney Spears, who emerged from the New Mickey Mouse Club as a young teenager and had her first hit at age 17. Her turbulent last few years show quickly looks can go, though to keep it real—except for the bald look, most young men in America would hit on a woman who looks like Spears does now. It’s only by the unrealistic yardstick of show business that Spears’ looks have declined.

For Amanda Shaw, Britney represents a road not taken, a path that might have been available to her had she wanted it. Other potentially lucrative roads opened themselves to Shaw, but instead she opted for humbler roads as someone who wants to stick around for a while.

Shaw can be very much a 17-year-old. As someone raised with manners, she refers to McCormick as Mister Jim, Rounder Records’ Scott Billington as Mister Scott and me as Mister Alex. She doesn’t drive and doesn’t want to because she’d rather buy shoes than spend money on gas. She gets flustered when asked if she has a boyfriend—she has one—and when she talks about her band, “Mister Ronnie” Falgout, “Mister Brint” Anderson and “Mikey” Barras, she talks about how they fit in her social life like uncles, whether its getting together for family barbecues or hanging out watching a Saints game. “Mister Ronnie has a camp down in Lafitte,” she says, “and we go fishing in the summers there.”

She has played the fiddle since she was 8, cut her first album, Little Black Dog, when she was 10, and I’m Not a Bubblegum Pop Princess at 13. She was in the Disney movies Stuck in the Suburbs in 2004 and Now You See It in 2005. Disney’s recording arm expressed interest in signing Shaw and, her mother Renee says, “Her lawyer said it was a good deal if we wanted to make a lot of money.” But the family—Amanda included—turned it down. “We wanted Amanda to be ready to take charge of her career when she turns 18, so we’ve made sure she’s been a part of every decision that affected her career,” Renee says.

After her experiences with the made-for-TV movies, Shaw had soured on Disney. “The mouse wasn’t so nice to work for,” she says without elaboration. She’s reluctant to talk too much about Disney because the company still means so much to so many people, but after taping a line reading for Hannah Montana, she withdrew from consideration when she realized it was a Disney project. Doing the movies did help her come to a moment of clarity, though. “They made me realize how much I love my music.”

Instead of signing with Disney, she signed with Rounder Records, the Massachusetts-based label that has traditionally focused on roots music. “Mister Dino [Gankendorff, her lawyer] said, ‘You can go with Disney. They have a lot of money, can get you out there, and can make you a big star. Or, if you’re really into your music, you can go with Rounder who doesn’t have Disney’s budget, but you’ll be more free as an artist.” Once she made her choice, the challenge became what record to make. Her first two albums were albums of kids’ music, but, Shaw says, “that’s because I was a kid.” It took almost two years to make Pretty Runs Out because it was hard to find material that reflected someone who was changing so quickly. “Sometimes we’d start picking out a song or writing a song, and because it took so long, a year later we’d decide ‘This doesn’t fit us anymore,’” she says. “We had written a few songs that by the time we recorded the album, the band had outgrown them.”

According to Rounder’s Scott Billington, they considered 30 to 40 songs for album, all of which seemed right at one point or another, but most of them ended up seeming too young or like songs she needed to grow into. They considered songs by Donovan and Etta James among others before deciding on songs by Diane Warren and Eleni Mandell along with songs Shaw co-wrote with McCormick, Shannon McNally and Anders Osborne. In each case, the writing experience was a learning one.

“I learned so much from him,” she says of Anders Osborne, who wrote “Wishing Me Away” with Shaw three or four years ago. “I learned about how the vibe’s got to be just right.” When McNally agreed to write with her, she wasn’t sure what they were going to do and thought she’d show Shaw her process. “It’s a bit of a daunting task to write a song with a 15 or 16-year-old,” McNally says. “You don’t want to put words in her mouth, and it’s really got to come from her.”

She focused Shaw on her own thinking and the moment, hoping to find something there that might prove to be material for a song. At the time, Shaw’s family had migrant workers living in their backyard working on their house, and they had become part of the family. According to McNally, “She jumped into this story about how a construction company had brought these people up from Mexico and ditched them there and didn’t pay them. The neighbors took advantage of them and she didn’t think that was right and immigration laws were all wrong. I thought, ‘Okay, Post-Katrina economics and immigration law—that’s going to be an easy song.’ She jumped right in the deep end.” McNally helped her focus on the song on the feel-good part of the story, the dinner at the end of the day.

The song, “Chirmolito,” named for a type of salsa, shows her youth a bit in the vocals, where she lightly mimics McNally’s drawl, but it also marks a musical territory that isn’t strictly defined by Acadian roots. She takes all the solos on her fiddle, but the groove and vibe is closer to Creedence Clearwater Revival. On I’m Not a Bubblegum Pop Princess, she did songs by the Ramones and the Clash, and frequently performed “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” live, but in those cases, she jumped from style to style. On Pretty Runs Out, the blend is more organic than it has been in the past. She still does a medley of reels and of Dennis McGee songs that highlight her fiddle playing, but beyond that, the album is largely country-flavored roots rock with her voice and fiddle giving it a Louisiana identity.

Just as Shaw picked an ambitious subject for “Chirmolito,” McCormick found her very conscious of what she wanted to say on “Pretty Runs Out, a title she picked from a notebook McCormick keeps of hooks and titles. He first imagined the title as being for a song sung by an older woman to a man leaving her for a younger lover, but he realized the song found its proper home with Shaw.

“She shared a lot of the same ideas about the temporary nature of surface beauty,” he says. “She had a lot of thoughts of her own, strong thoughts. We talked about that, what messages are we putting out there?” McCormick writes in Music Row in Nashville, has the song “We Rode in Trucks” by Luke Bryan on the country charts, and recently had songs cut by Trace Adkins, Randy Travis and Rodney Atkins. He also co-wrote “Woulda Coulda Shoulda” from Pretty Runs Out, and over the Christmas vacation the two got together to write again.

“She’s very musical,” McCormick says. “She’s ahead of the curve. She’s got a vision for who she is and who she wants to be and how she wants to present herself.”

McNally similarly left the experience impressed. “She doesn’t want to be big more than she wants to be good. She’ll come into her own. Songwriting is a lifelong process; you hope the songs you write at 20 you’ll still want to play at 60. She’ll figure it out.” McNally also talked with Shaw about some of the challenges young women face in music, referring to Britney and Hillary Duff among others. “The important thing is to be successful with your clothes on,” McNally says.

Shaw has grown in the last few years in more ways than one. In 2006, she dealt with major loss for the first time when her guitarist Scott Thomas died of a heart attack. Shaw found out about his death while she was onstage at a gig that he was uncharacteristically late for.

She also became involved in a cause for the first time, signing on at 14 for a part in the IMAX film Hurricane on the Bayou. When the project started, it was a cautionary tale about the importance of Lousiana’s coastal wetlands in which Tab Benoit shows Shaw around the bayous and the ecosystem that would be lost if a hurricane were to hit the Louisiana coast. It’s a cause she now supports, and she missed Thanksgiving to be in Sudbury, Ontario for an opening of Hurricane on the Bayou. “The real problem is our environment. We need our wetlands and we need to take of that because it will take care of us and protect us.”

Hurricane Katrina made the footage that had been shot prophetic, and to add to the drama, Shaw’s grandmother and grandfather in Lakeview were missing for two weeks. “They were first sent to Shreveport, and then they were put in a shelter in Hammond,” Shaw says. The hurricane not only forced her to face mortality as it did with all of us, but it brought some of the complicated facts of life into clearer focus. They got charity food for the first time. “A church in Minnesota wanted to send us money,” she says. When her family tried to talk them into giving money to someone less fortunate, the church insisted it wanted to give it to them. “It was a really humbling experience.”

Then again, there are so many ways in which Shaw is very much a teenager. She gets giddy recalling Elaine episodes of Seinfeld. She loves the Saints and was excited when she received a text message from Drew Brees’ wife. She a senior at Mt. Carmel who will graduate this year (albeit as an independent study), and she’s looking forward to going to Tulane next year.

Shaw is still finding her singing voice, but she has already learned to make sense of seven years of show biz experience. “Everything is building blocks,” she says. “If not for taking those little steps, I don’t know who I would be or where I would be at.” With Pretty Runs Out, she took the first steps toward becoming a songwriter, something that is important to her. “I wanted to start being able to write music, so that way it came from me and the band.”

Amanda Shaw has twice said no to paths that might have led to money and fame, but think about those who have said yes to it. Who takes Hilary Duff serious as a singer? Is anybody paying enough attention to Miley Cyrus’ music to decide if she’s talented? And if she is, will anybody ever give her credit for it? It’s possible to envision a number of musical futures for Shaw—roots rock if she wants one level of success, or country music if she wants to follow in the footsteps of 17-year-old Taylor Swift (who she shared a bill with last month during Metairie’s Family Gras). Where this all goes, though, is a question for another day.

“It’s important for me to start finding myself in my music,” Shaw says. “I don’t want my age or my fiddle playing to be a gimmick. I want to be a serious musician when I grow up.”

Amanda Shaw and the Cute Guys play a CD-release party Saturday, February 9 at the House of Blues’ Parish.

Published February 2008, OffBeat Louisiana Music & Culture Magazine, Volume 21, No. 2.
- Off Beat Magazine


Discography

ALBUMS

2011:
Live at 2011 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival - Amanda Shaw

2010:
Good Southern Girl - Amanda Shaw

2009:
Live at 2009 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival - Amanda Shaw

2008:
Pretty Runs Out - Amanda Shaw

Photos

Bio

The New Orleans native is a pioneer of the new breed of young, roots-based musicians who have embraced both the traditional sounds of Louisiana and the pop sounds of the mainstream. Amanda Shaw touring nationally and internationally since she was eight years old has recorded three critically-acclaimed independent albums, won a Big Easy Award for Best Female Entertainer and had two feature roles in Disney movies as a youth. She most recently was featured in the award winning documentary Hurricane on the Bayou - A MacGillivray Freeman Film capturing the culture and music of Louisiana shot in the midst of Katrina. Currently writing for a new album, Amanda Shaw will be a force to be reckon with in 2012.