Description
Shelley King
Shelley King has been busy; Busier than ever touring relentlessly with Carolyn Wonderland’s band for the last several years. But the road has not kept her from working tirelessly on her own music and the creativity has flowed in magical ways for King. “Madam Mystic” marks Shelley King’s 10th album release and the third album on which Shelley King has collaborated with John Magnie and Steve Amedée, members of the renowned New Orleans group, the subdudes.
This album is truly a testament to the power of collaboration and the magic that can arise when talented musicians come together. Shelley King recorded the basic tracks with Magnie, Amedée, and esteemed Colorado bassist Eric Thorin, creating a solid foundation for the rest of the album. As the creative process unfolded, she ventured into numerous different studios across the country to capture the essence and soul of each track: Two sessions in Colorado, two different Austin, Texas studios, three sessions in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and finally a Woodstock, New York studio, every location brought its unique flavor to the music.
In addition to the core team, King has enlisted an array of exceptional musicians to elevate the sound of “Madam Mystic”. Multi Grammy winning Cindy Cashdollar, the steel guitar/dobro virtuoso, lends her incomparable talents to the album. Electric guitar maestro Will McFarlane adds his signature touches. Shawn Camp further enriches the album’s sonic landscape with his mastery of the baritone guitar, mandolin and vocals. Carolyn Wonderland shows off her whistling skills, plays some down and dirty guitar and sings a ton of background vocals. Amedée on drumset, and a wild bag full of percussion toys and sound effects as well as his considerable vocal ability. Magnie plays keyboards, sings, orchestrates hand claps, kazoo choruses, and arranges the horn parts, bringing in northern Colorado horn players Greta Cornett and Phuong Nguyen on a few songs. Shelley performs a heartfelt duet with Matt Skinner, and Tim Cook’s vocals can be heard holding down the bass on several tracks.
Shelley King is known for penning a treasure trove of original material on her own, but on this album she also co-wrote numerous tracks, including one with Nashville songwriting wiz Shawn Camp. On other songs she splits songwriting credit with John Magnie, Matt Skinner and Robert Cline, and her longtime band mate and guitarist Marvin Dykhuis. “Madam Mystic” effortlessly blends elements of soul, country, R&B, rock and gospel, treating listeners to a captivating musical journey.
Shelley King’s decades-long journey in the music industry has been on her terms. Throughout her career, Shelley King has taken on the roles of songwriter, band leader, studio producer, owner of her own label and publishing company, to self-release all of her work. Her talent, energy, commitment to the craft, and service to the community led her to be recognized by the Texas Legislature and appointed Official Texas State Musician. She’s won several Austin Music Awards, and had her songs recorded by several internationally known musicians. Her relentless touring efforts, determination and unwavering belief in writing good songs and delivering powerful performances has taken her all over the world where she has built a strong national and international following.
Carolyn Wonderland
The depths of the Texas blues tradition with the wit of a poet. She hits the stage with an unmatched presence, a true legend in her time.
She’d grown up the child of a singer in a band and began playing her mother’s vintage Martin guitar when other girls were dressing dolls. She’d gone from being the teenage toast of her hometown Houston to sleeping in her van in Austin amid heaps of critical acclaim for excellent recordings.
Along with the guitar and the multitude of other instruments she learned to play – trumpet, accordion, piano, mandolin, lap steel – Wonderland’s ability to whistle remains most unusual. Whistling is a uniquely vocal art seldom invoked in modern music, yet it’s among the most spectacular talents the human voice possesses.
That vocal proficiency was well-established in the singer’s midteens, landing her gigs at Fitzgerald’s by age 15. She absorbed Houston influences like Little Screamin’ Kenny, Albert Collins, Lavelle White, Jerry Lightfoot, Joe “Guitar” Hughes, Little Joe Washington, “borrowed” a car to sneak out and jam ended up swapping songs with Townes Van Zandt at Houston’s Local’s on White Oak, got involved in the underground theater scene becoming the first “Photochick” in Jason Nodler’s “In the Under Thunderloo” and soaked up touring bands like the Paladins, Los Lobos, and the Mad Hatter of Texas music, Doug Sahm. Her music played in television series such as “Time of Your Life” and NBC’s “Homicide.” The Lone Star State was as credible a proving ground for blues in the 1980s and 90s as existed, especially in Austin with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Angela Strehli, Omar & the Howlers, and Lou Ann Barton all in their prime. By the following decade, Austin’s blues luster thinned, but Houston, always a bastion of soul and R&B, boasted the Imperial Monkeys with the effervescent Carolyn Wonderland as ruler of the jungle.
In the early 1990s, Wonderland & the Imperial Monkeys were invited to the Guadalupe Street Antone’s in Austin. There, they were treated like royalty with the singer as the queen of hearts in the club’s post-Stevie Ray Vaughan stable, which included Toni Price, Johnny and Jay Moeller, Sue Foley, Mike and Corey Keller, and the Ugly Americans. It was a good bar for the Monkeys to hang, and Austin felt so comfortable that when the band called it quits a few years later, after a run-in with black ice and a semi that wound young Miss Wonderland in the hospital, she set her sights on Austin at the start of the millennium. Besides, Doug Sahm had told Carolyn while they were signing autographs together at the High Sierra Music Festival, she ought to move to Austin, as it was the land of free guitar lessons. She was there in months.
Living in Austin renewed Carolyn Wonderland’s focus on her multiple talents, underlining rich vocals with excellent guitar work, trumpet, and piano, as well as that remarkable ability to whistle on key. Despite spending two years homeless (or as she puts it, “van-full,”) Austin has been fertile ground for Carolyn. A series of each-better-than-the-next discs began with Alcohol & Salvation in 2001 (“songs about booze and God; records are a time capsule of what happened that year”) 2003’s “Bloodless Revolution,” The Bismeaux Releases: 2008’s “Miss Understood,” 2011’s “Peace Meal” (recorded at Bismeaux and Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock,) 2015’s “Live Texas Trio”; and here we are with 2017’s “Moon Goes Missing.”
Carolyn also got to stretch out with other bands and notably appears in Jerry Lightfoot’s Band of Wonder’s 2002 release, “Texistentialism” featuring Jerry Lightfoot, Vince Welnick (Grateful Dead, The Tubes, Todd Rundgren,) Carolyn, Barry “Frosty” Smith (Lee Michaels, Sly & the Family Stone, Rare Earth, Soulhat) and Larry Fulcher (Taj Mahal, Phantom Blues Band). She has released many songs for charity, 2016’s “Room at the Inn” (iTunes) benefits Doctors Without Borders, 2013’s “Money in the Game” (featuring Marcia Ball and Shelley King) benefits Planned Parenthood, “the Farmer Song” from “Miss Understood” benefits Farm AID, “Annie’s Scarlet Letter” from “Bloodless Revolution” benefits NORML, 1997 Justice Records released Carolyn’s version of Little Screamin’ Kenny’s holiday lament, “Blue Lights” (featuring Ian McLagan) benefitting MD Anderson Children’s Art Project.
Carolyn’s first appearance on vinyl? She’s with James Williamson (Stooges) on the April 2014 Record Store Day single, “Open Up & Bleed” AND on the full LP inspired by that fun session, “Re-Licked” featuring Raw Power Era songs with cool and risky guests.
Her circle of musician friends and admirers broadened to include not only Ray [Benson, who produced Miss Understood] but also the late Eddy Shaver, Shelley King, and yes, Bob Dylan, who likened her composition “Bloodless Revolution” to “a mystery movie theme.” She appeared on the same taping with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings when she made her debut on PBS’ “Austin City Limits” (Season 35.) and had the thrill of her life when Bonnie Raitt joined her onstage for “The Road to Austin” concert film featuring Stephen Bruton and all his friends, got to play with James Cotton, Pinetop Perkins, and so many others at Antone’s, she and Erin Jaimes put together a benefit for Uncle John Turner and Johnny Winter insisted on bringing his band by to play, Carolyn’s wedding to A. Whitney Brown was officiated by Mike Nesmith (Monkees,) who serendipitously introduced them on set at VideoRanch in 2010. (there is a video of the two of them on stage together that day!) She began co-writing with locals Sarah Brown, Shelley King, Marcia Ball, Ruthie Foster, Cindy Cashdollar, and Guy Forsyth; sat in with Los Lobos, Levon Helm, Vintage Trouble, Robert Earl Keen, and Ray Wylie Hubbard; and toured relentlessly for the past two decades, sometimes with luminaries like Dave Alvin, Buddy Guy and Johnny Winter, so far spreading her music in US, Europe, South America and Japan. She also claims membership in the all-girl Sis Deville, the gospel-infused Imperial Crown Golden Harmonizers, the Texas Guitar Women, and the Woodstock Lonestars.
Carolyn recently joined John Mayall’s Band as his guitarist and is balancing life on the road with writing time at home and on the way. She’s been touring for over 25 years and ain’t done yet. Come and see it at a show! (seriously, she’s perpetually on tour.)
