Biography
Pulp Americana
"Brilliant storyteller from Wyoming." Lennart Persson, Rootsy
"Split the difference between Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, and while you won't have everything you need to know about J Shogren, you will have at least a place to start." Jeremy Clark, Rambles.NET
On his new album, “Bird Bones & Muscle”, J Shogren describes his music as “Pulp Americana” -- a singular conjuring of gut-bucket blues, deep-fried southern jive, Holy Ghost revival, polka night at the Grange, she-done-me-wrong hillbilly boogie and backwater bayou bump and swing. But instead of ghosting over sepia-toned museum pieces, Shogren’s music radiates a gritty immediacy, stick-to-your-ribs soul and genuine emotional depth that can only come from an encyclopedic understanding of the nooks and crannies of the what’s been recently called “weird old America”. “Roots music,” according to Shogren, “reflects reality -- a scruffy and gruff exterior sheltering the life and death interior that define us all.” Recalling everything from Dylan to Dr. John to Buck Owens to Leon Redbone to Tom Waits, Shogren shrugs and simply explains, “No veneer; just a coat of varnish to keep out the weather.”
If there is one thing that can be said of Shogren’s music, it is his ability to conjure -- his ability to summon different times, different places, different waypoints in the American experience. Yet it’s his lyrics that leave the most indelible impression. “I chose the title of the CD, “Bird Bones & Muscle” to illustrate a notion of fragility living next to strength -- how fragile and strong a person can be when lost in the wilderness within. How one can be both simultaneously and sequentially flying/falling, alive/comatose, breathing/holding your breath, usually at unpredictable/inconvenient intervals.”
On “Bird Bones & Muscle” Shogren is aided and abetted by three members of the well-respected Jalan Crossland band, including Crossland (banjo/guitar), Andy Phreaner (drums/percussion) and Shaun Kelley (bass). Mandy Bohlender and Dan Tinker provided the harmony vocals and vocal arrangements. “This was a full-on collaborative effort,” Shogren reports. “Fourteen of 15 songs were arranged with the band. So the music has more cohesiveness across songs than early work, even though the song themselves differ so very widely in authentic American styles. Jalan, Andy and Shaun are such pros and nimble musicians who know their instruments so well that they adapted their playing to the different styles of each song.”
It’s not hard to imagine Shogren, who splits his time between Centennial Wyoming and Stockholm Sweden, as the rugged back-country skier and the guy that can catch trout in a rain gutter (he can do both!), but what’s more impressive is Shogren’s day job. A professor of Applied Philosophy, Shogren has served as the King of Sweden’s special professor on environmental science and as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007. “It’s been a good job,” he winks. Shogren, to say the least, is not your typical, navel-gazing, journal-scribbling folk singer.
With such a busy calendar, why does a guy like Shogren chose to delve into the dusty and often abandoned corners of American culture with his songs? “The need to write songs is an impossible passion of mine,” he says. “Even after a dozen books and hundreds of journal articles, songwriting is the only serious form of expression/writing that works for me. Like most songwriters I write songs because I have to. Songs arrive in and out of the subconscious and sometimes you hang out with them, sometimes you don’t. A good idea sticks, a great idea kicks.”
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Members:
D Tinker, Mandy B, B McKay, Jascha H, Mark Z
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Sounds Like:
jj cale, j prine, r newman, c poole
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Influences:
traditional music, old & new
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AirPlay Direct Member Since:
04/08/08
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Profile Last Updated:
01/13/24 06:19:24