Music
Press
Less is definitely more. For some reason, Shana Scudder reminds me of a quirky combination of Ani DiFranco and Azure Ray. Listen closely. This ten-song, self-titled full length won’t disappoint. Interestingly enough, Scudder’s music career supposedly began at age two. She had given an impromptu Christmas concert in the lobby of her grandmother’s apartment. She is also a quasi renaissance woman of the arts. She has been in the Lynchburg City Schools String Orchestra for ten years and was even a theater geek in such places as Virginia, North Carolina, and New York.
For a solo artist, this album is very impressive. Her vocals are rich and passionate and don’t require any backup vocals throughout her songs. It’s just the listener, Shana, and her acoustic guitar. Her words are very simple, yet paint a picture of her life. Everyone who has their highs and lows in life should give this a try. You might have more in common with a girl from North Carolina than you might think. What’s really nice about this album is how the acoustic parallels perfectly with her vocals. The instrument isn’t so domineering, rather it’s a nice balance; so it sounds modest. Her singing doesn’t have much range, but it is nonetheless pleasant. Standout tracks are “A Song for Your Beauty” and “Time.”
Shana has definitely come a long way. She has played several shows in North Carolina and had some stints in New York and Virginia. This is definitely not heavy listening; instead it’s an album perfect for those lazy summer days.
- Left Off the Dial
Discography
Shana:
"Ask Again," EP, 1999
"Shana Scudder," LP, 2002
Photos
Bio
Indie folk-punk songstress Shana Scudder has been a performer for 25 years, and a writer for 20. She has performed in venues as diverse as the lobby of her grandmother’s apartment building, concert halls in London, womyn’s music festivals, CBGB’s, and every little bar and coffee shop in between. Her music is adaptable to many venues and audiences and while she prefers to rock out with a full band, she can often be found touring and performing solo acoustic, and bringing that same energy to just her guitar and voice.
Shana’s performance career began in the more classical arts – ballet and violin. Until age 17, she toured with the Lynchburg City Schools String Orchestra and performed locally with the Lynchburg Regional Ballet Theatre. At 17, Shana left home and traveled the country, gathering stories and experiences that would soon appear in her songs. Upon returning to Virginia, Shana picked up the guitar and finally found a way to combine her two great loves – writing and music. The following year, Shana left the South once again, this time for New York City, to study theatre at the prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts. From there, Shana returned South, to earn her B.A. in English from Guilford College in Greensboro, NC; all the while continuing to hone her interest and skill as a songwriter and musician. It was at this time that Shana recorded her debut EP titled “Ask Again.” Several years later, Shana teamed up with legendary producer and engineer Karen Kane to record her first full-length, self-titled release on her own Little Scudder Records. At that point, Shana began touring and gigging in earnest, hitting venues all up and down the East Coast. In 2004, Shana returned to New York and her career as a performer took another exciting turn, this time into the world of gender performance. Shana created the character Bebe Gunn, a pistol-packing, trailer-park-bred, high femme hellion and performed in venues such as the Knitting Factory main stage as part of Murray Hill’s Cherry Bomb, the 9:30 Club in D.C, as part of The Great Big International Drag King Show, and the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco, as part of a benefit for the Tom Waddell Clinic.
Now Shana is back down South, working on her third studio release, playing music all over the place, and continuing to explore other areas of performance art. Shana’s live performances are intimate encounters where the audience is invited to be part of worlds, both real and imagined, where joy and heartbreak take center stage. Shana shares the deepest parts of herself in her songs and invites the audience to share in some of her most precious moments, the ugliest and the most beautiful, depicting scenes of life fully lived.
Links
