7 Questions from Shane

Monte Warden won his first of many Austin Music Awards when he was just 15 years old for Best New Band, honoring his rockabilly trio Whoa Trigger!. Warden rode the buzz of that band into his next project – leading (as well as writing all the material for) the even more popular and highly influential, The Wagoneers, which scored a major-label deal with A&M Records after performing at the very 1st SXSW. 

Piper EJ Jones has been performing and excelling as a performer of traditional Highland bagpipe music and folk music since he first picked up the pipes in 1987. He co-founded the renowned group Clandestine in 1991, with whom he produced five albums and won multiple awards.

Frances Cunningham is a native of Southeast Texas and fell into Irish music at an early age. She learned the Irish Bouzouki and became a founding member of the Celtic Rock band SixMileBridge which recorded and toured heavily from the late 90s into the 2000s. She moved to Nashville where she picked up the Tenor Banjo and since then has gone on to be an in-demand accompanist and session musician in the Nashville recording scene. She is a winner of the Midwest Fleadh on both the Bouzouki and Banjo. 

Though Houston native Libby Koch began writing songs in junior high school, she never considered doing so professionally until she attended law school at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University, where she discovered she could hold her own in a city full of heavyweight talents. A job at a large Houston law firm convinced her music, not law, was her true calling, and eventually, she decided it was time to … just move on. 

Like her cousin Linda Ronstadt, Morales and her sister Roberta grew up in a musical family in Tucson, Arizona, learning to perform traditional Mexican music while developing broad-ranging musical taste prior to moving to Texas. She recorded six albums as “Sisters Morales,” the beloved sibling duo in which she partnered with Roberta, who passed away from cancer in August 2021.

Shake is back in the saddle with Shane for the second of quite a few sit-downs.

For more than 50 years, Texas singer-songwriter Shake Russell, has been entertaining audiences throughout the region and all over the United States with his unique Americana style of folk rock.  Weaving sophisticated harmonies through his songs and drawing from various genres, Shake created a style of folk-rock that is uniquely his own.

Over the course of his remarkable three-and-a-half decade career, Smith has released 15 critically lauded studio albums, landed singles on both the country and pop charts, penned a symphony, scored works for theater and dance, published a widely celebrated book on creativity, exhibited works of visual art, and co-founded the non-profit SongwritingWith:Soldiers program, which pairs veterans with musicians in order to tap into the transformational possibilities of collaborative songwriting.

Internationally acclaimed, bilingual singer/songwriter and 2021 Houston Chronicle "Musician of the Year," Amanda Pascali was born in Queens, New York, and is based in Houston, Texas. Pascali, whose music has been described as “an auditory passport,” has performed internationally, from the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. to packed houses in Italy, Romania, and across the Eastern hemisphere. Accompanied by classically trained multi-instrumentalist Addison Freeman and the rest of her band, Amanda Pascali is not only a powerful poet with an angelic voice but an unstoppable force.

Kym Warner is an Australian musician and record producer, and a founding member of the American bluegrass band The Greencards. Warner was an aspiring bluegrass player after inheriting the bug from his father, an early Australian bluegrass pioneer. The winner of the Australian National Bluegrass Mandolin Championship for four consecutive years, Warner toured with country music artists Gina Jeffreys, and with Young again in Kasey Chambers's band.

Sunny folk-pop siblings Trish & Darin (Murphy) were one of Houston's most popular local acts in the early and mid-'90s before being bitten by the Austin bug. They still visit about once a month in super-popular '70s/'80s cover band Skyrocket!, but around the holidays revive Trish & Darin for some warmhearted holiday memories. 

An Irish singer-songwriter, Pat Byrne has come a long way since his first deal with Universal. In late 2017, Byrne began his migration to Austin, Texas. In 2019, Pat took the US by storm, with breakout performances at the 30A Festival, SXSW, Kerrville Folk Festival and the Americana Festival. Being immersed in the Texas music scene, Pat's sophomore US release, Into the Light, has an edgier feel underscoring both emotional depth and greater confidence, while blending new influences with his rich Irish heritage.