Michelle Shocked

Artist's Website

Michelle Shocked is a traveler and a troubadour; a ‘picker-poet’, as they say in Texas. As a young feminist, she left Texas to travel, Kerouac-style, a musical vagabond caught up in Reagan-era grassroots politics. Her musical career was ignited by a bootleg recording made around a Kerrville Folk Festival campfire on a Sony Walkman. Released in England as The Texas Campfire Tapes without Shocked’s authority, its success abroad enticed Mercury Records to offer the newcomer a recording contract.

For Mercury, Shocked recorded a trilogy of albums that stand as a captivating primer on American music. Short Sharp Shocked’s spirited folk-rock progressed into Captain Swing’s energetic jump blues, expanding to Arkansas Traveler’s travelogue of minstrel-era country. While songs like ‘Anchorage,’ ‘Come a Long Way,’ and ‘On the Greener Side,’ achieved popular success, her stylistic iconoclasm frustrated Mercury, particularly since she retained ownership of her masters. Shocked spent several years battling the label before finally ‘liberating’ herself, citing the 13th Amendment.

Following one more foray into major-labeldom with 1996′s Kind Hearted Woman, on BMG’s Private Music, Shocked launched her own Mighty Sound label in 2001. A gospel-tinged debut, Deep Natural in 2002 was followed by reissues of her Mercury albums in 2003-04. In 2005, she defied convention (one of her specialties) by simultaneously releasing another trilogy: the roots-rocking ‘divorce album’ Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Disney-fied western swing set Got No Strings and the Latin/blues blast Mexican Standoff.

2007′s ‘ToHeavenURide’ was digitally captured at the 2003 Telluride Bluegrass Festival.