David Shaw

One Liner:  The Revivalists singer making similar tunes without the normal band

Wikipedia Genre:  Rock

Home: Hamilton. Ohio (but New Orleans now)

Poster Position: 10
Both Weekends.
Sunday at 4:45.

Tito's Tent.

Thoughts:  If you have been reading me for a while, then you know that I really like the Revivalists.  Went all the way to Denver last year to see them play Red Rocks and saw them for both weekends of ACL Fest.  And so, this is the lead singer of the band, doing his own little solo action.  In general, it annoys me when a lead singer goes out on his own like this, because it usually just sounds like the band anyway.  The newest Eddie Vedder album is a great example of that, but I remember the same feeling from Marcus Mumford and Jim James.  Just stay with your bandmates and do crap with them, man!

There are a lot of David Shaws in the world.  Scottish, Australian, and English footballers.  A Canadian and American footballer (the American one was the coach of Stanford).  Writers, politicians, a painter, and a scuba diver.  But this one just sings and looks handsome.  

He started The Revivalists after a chance meeting.  He graduated from Ohio State and in 2007, he had moved to New Orleans and failed to find good bandmates using Craigslist.  “I had some really interesting Craigslist interactions where you don’t know what you’re getting into,” Shaw says with a laugh. But then a chance meeting with guitarist Zack Feinberg, when Feinberg was riding his bike on a different route than normal and struck up a conversation when he saw Shaw playing guitar on his front porch.  They hung out and jammed on his front porch, and that led to the future seed of the band.  They added in a handful of musicians they each knew, and started jamming around town.  

I didn't even know he did a solo thing, but his first completely solo releases started back in 2020.  Just one album, 2021's David Shaw, and a handful of other singles.  He has said that the reason for the solo stuff is that some of the songs he writes have just felt too personal to him and not right for the full band.  His top track is from that album - "Heavy Soul" has 3.1 million streams.

I mean, other than the fact that there is no pedal steel in there, this just sounds like a swampy, funky little nugget of Revivalists action.  I can't tell anything in those lyrics that sounds so totally personal that he couldn't have sung this with the band.  But maybe he's just deeper than me.  His chorus is definitely yellable in the crowd, so that is fun.  "Got Me Feeling Good" is another good cut from the album.  But instead of going with that one, let's check his brand new single - "Take a Look Inside" - with 24k streams.

Kinda got that new Kacey Musgraves spacey vibe in there, and his voice sounds a little softer in there.  Solid tune.  I will definitely go check him out!