Music
Press
By PATRICK REIS, Editorial Intern
When she got the call, Sunshine Hahn was sitting in the bottom floor of Pike Place Market's indoor mall, strumming her guitar and hoping for the occasional tip from passersby. Then came her break. She had a chance to perform on stage at the market's center.
Hahn took that opportunity with a vengeance. She ran upstairs, guitar in hand, and launched into her brand of rhythm-infused folk. She drowned out the fish-tossers with her booming voice and acoustic guitar, drawing marketplace patrons to the stage until the crowd overflowed the designated seating area. And just like that, Sunshine Hahn made the jump from the market's bottom floor to being its main attraction.
Hahn's breakthrough sounds improbable, but this is busking, the practice of performing in the street for tips that begins literally at the drop of a hat, if not the opening of a guitar case.
And, Sun., Sept. 16 at Pike Place Market was Buskers' Festival. Steel guitars and didgeridoos lined the sidewalks, backed by musicians of all ages and styles. The event showcased street performance talent while punctuating the end of Seattle's official Buskers Week, as well as providing the perfect venue for someone like Hahn to get her start.
"The organizers heard me playing on the street, so they told me to give them my number, and said they would call me if there was a no-show, and that's pretty much what happened," Hahn says. "It was one of the best days of my life."
And if Hahn ever becomes famous, her story will be added to the long history of busking in Seattle. Seattle Buskers' Week, the only such official week dedicated to street musicians in the country, began in 2004, when founding members of the Pike Place Market Performers Guild Jim Page and Artis the Spoonman were having lunch with community activist Nick Licata, who's now president of the Seattle City Council. "We were talking, and I slipped in that there ought to be a Buskers' Month," Page says. "Without missing a beat, Licata looked at me and said 'Jim, a month might be a little much, but we could do a week.'"
This wasn't Page's first trip to City Hall on busking's behalf. Thirty years earlier, he was performing on a sidewalk when a motorcycle cop threatened him with arrest for playing without a permit. But there was a catch: permits were only granted to the blind and otherwise disabled. Page, however, was determined to change the law. "I went down to Mayor's Office and got the ball rolling, everybody got on board, and before you knew it, street performing was legal in any public place, whether you had a permit or not."
Busking in public space has been legal ever since, and Page is passionate about it. For Page, busking isn't just a way to make a buck; it has an important social function.
"If we are going to have an authentic culture, we need to have art in the streets and parks," he says. "There are no agents, no publicity managers, no censors. The only people you answer to are yourself and your audience."
That connection between individuals is what draws Mark Mukunda and his eight-foot didgeridoo down to Pike Place Market every day in the summer. "I like it when the audience gets into it, when kids come up in front of you and dance." Makunda fell in love with the didgeridoo 10 years ago at a festival in Joshua Tree, California, where he saw some of the best Australian Aboriginal players in the world. He picked up a used didgeridoo from a friend who was getting rid of it, and he's been playing ever since.
At Sunday's Festival, Mukunda sat cross-legged on the corner adjacent to a pastry shop, staring placidly into space as low, quivering sounds came from the bell of his instrument. As pedestrians ambled past, most paused to watch and listen. A few dropped coins in Makunda's hat, but most just smiled appreciatively and went on their way.
But while this may have seemed mundane to some people, Mukunda was thrilled. "I made some money today, and I got to do some playing," he says. "Busking is about showing the world that it is possible to follow your dreams. I do what I love and make a living out of it." Page has made his living out of street performing since 1971, but he has no plans to retire. "I'll be playing until I physically can't," he says.
And when that day comes, Sunshine Hahn, Mark Mukunda and a host of other up-and-coming musicians will be there, hats on the sidewalk and instruments in hand, to take up the mantle.
- Real Change News" ~ September 19-25, 2007
Discography
Album: Feel Good Funk by Jason Ricci, 2005.
Over 50,000 copies sold.
Arrangement & Vocals on Feel Good Funk
Arrangement & Lead Vocals on Careless Love Blues
Airplay in many radio stations across the U.S.
Album: Truth Be Told by Sunshine Hahn, 2006.
Acoustic Guitar & Vocals on all tracks.
Airplay in many radio stations across the U.S.
Album: Flatland
by Matthew Hart & the Rebel Heirs, 2006.
Vocals on Flatland.
Album: Okla'Home, 2007.
Guitar & Vocals on all tracks.
Photos
Bio
"Hahn is a true ambassador of the blues. She is sure to inspire all who get to know her music."
Sunshine Hahn is a young and talented performer who has chosen the Blues as her muse. Oklahoma born and raised in the South of Florida, she is inspired by the grace of Bonnie Raitt, the dignity of Bessie Smith, and the fusion stylings of artists like Michelle Shocked. Those inspirations led her to seriously study music and begin a lifelong pursuit of singing, writing and performing in her own unique style. Sunshine has studied under some of the best instructors in blues today including: Eric Deaton of Fat Possum & 219 Records, and Paul Rishell of John Sebastian's J Band. Sunshine Hahn’s meritous EP was recorded live: 3 mics, two guitars, and that one voice...No overdubs, no mixing/mastering and none of the “nashville treatment” that is so popular today. She has produced, performed, and recorded with Jason Ricci, Delta Groove recording artist, on a project that has independently sold over 50,000 units. While living & working in Nashville, she achieved her greatest musical moment, so far, by performing with Michelle Shocked.
Jim Johnson, program manager of KGOU radio in Norman, OK states, “Given the often dank & colorless world that comprises your average “club scene”...It certainly is nice to find that occasional ray of light, that bright beacon of talent...and warm presence that reminds you of your favorite artist. Watching talent under such conditions is the reward we seek and Sunshine Hahn’s warm ray’s are the stuff stars are made of.”
Sunshine brings honesty and beauty to her style of blues...a rarity these days, especially in young talent."
- Olga Wilhemine, founder of the Jesse Mae Hemphill Foundation
C.K. Clothier, Sec. of the Okla. Songwriters & Composers Assoc. adds, “Sunshines commitment and serious approach to performing and entertaining is just what successful musicians are made of.”
"Sincerity is the quality I value most in the music I listen too. Technical ability is great and even better when it is balanced with taste and some soul...Sunshine Hahn is a performer who has honed her technical chops plays with alot of soul and above all always come off as sincere. She means it."
- Jason Ricci, Delta Groove recording artist
"Sunshine Hahn is a talented and soulful performer who brings with her a knowledge of traditional blues and her individual style and grace into every performance. A must see for every blues enthusiast."
- The Clay McClinton Band
Including discriminating venues such as B.B. Kings in Nashville and the famous Blue Door in Oklahoma City, Sunshine performs over 200 shows across the midsouth every year fusing the blues with her powerful and straight forward talents. It is no mistake that Sunshine Hahn has chosen this way of life. It allows her to bring forth fully her heart and soul, and she is eager to share...
Let the sunshine in because, Sunshine is a true ambassador of the blues and she is sure to inspire all who get to hear and know her.
THE ESSENTIAL SUNSHINE SHOW
Only the hippest know for sure, and Sunshine Hahn has pockets full of hip styles. She has buckets of blues, decades deep. Her fluid voice reflects the acrobatic mastery of her influences: Nina Simone, Memphis Minnie, and Jessie Mae Hemphill, among others. The diverse artistry that inspires her music mixes impeccably with her personal style, and it becomes impossible to separate cover from original composition, mistress from mentor. This combination allows her the freedom to create new arenas within the traditional forms of blues, jazz, and folk...to interpret and experiment. She can grab your attention with a folk standard or execute a horn heavy jazz compositions with only her guitar. Her guitar style is deceptively simple yet efficient, effective and minimalist, carving its perfect niche just below the voice, and it's the voice that speaks to her depth.
Sunshine understands that profound southern groove that is the delta, and the urban styles that grew from it. At any given moment her voice transports the audience from Memphis to Chicago, to Texas or New Orleans, now or in any past decade. Let it stand as the recital of universal soul, universal style, and it's a voice so tasty it would take a vintage vino, gumbo with lobster, and a bar-b-que feast with chocolate cake to even begin to explain it.
Art is the fusion of technique and soul, the unification of youth and wisdom. The great revelation of the integrity of Sunshine's show isn't just the synergy of style, the fusion of guts and energy. It's that voice and its inherent experience. It's that voice that transmits the familiarity of multiple life times, of relationships with love, pain, and judgment straight into the listeners consciousness, for them to take, and keep and enjoy and wonder how did that ancient voice get in that young woman? Listen to the mystery and you'll never be the same. Only the hippest
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