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Fiddle Player Returns To Town

Rounder Records

At the age of 18, Amanda Shaw has released three CDs and acted in two TV movies.

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By CURTIS ROSS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 7, 2008

When most 4-year-olds point to something on TV and say "I want that," it's usually a toy that winds up discarded not long after it's purchased.

Amanda Shaw's request had a little more staying power.

"I was watching TV at 4 years old and they showed an orchestra and when they showed the violin it was love at first sight," Shaw says by telephone from her home near New Orleans.

"I don't know if it was the sound or the look but something just clicked," Shaw remembers.

Something clicked when Shaw started playing as well. She became the youngest performer to solo with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, and won a Big Easy Award for best female performer at 14.

Earlier this year, she released her third album, following a pair of independent discs, "Pretty Runs Out," on Rounder Records.

Saturday, she celebrated her 18th birthday at New Orleans' Rock 'n' Bowl, playing with local luminaries such as George Porter, Marva Wright and Rockin' Dopsie Jr.

Shaw is classically trained but, living in Louisiana, she quickly became infatuated with Cajun music.

"Cajun music is passed down like stories from generation to generation," Shaw says. "Some songs I learned from old records or other fiddle players would show me."

Shaw released a pair of independent albums, "Little Black Dog" and "I'm Not a Bubblegum Pop Princess." She backed up the latter album title's claim by covering The Ramones and The Clash along with traditional Louisiana fiddle tunes.

Along the way she also caught the eye of Disney, which cast her in a pair of TV movies, "Stuck in the Suburbs" and "Now You See It ... ." The experience seemed to cure her of the acting bug, at least for now.

The movies "were good experiences but in the end it wasn't really for me," Shaw says. "Acting is something where you have to be really good at becoming and developing a character, getting into that frame of mind. What I love about music is that it's about writing songs and playing onstage and hanging out with the band."

Her immediate future includes more shows in support of "Pretty Runs Out," a spirited mix of rock, blues, country and Cajun sounds. Shaw did her first writing on the album, collaborating with such veterans as Anders Osbourne and Shannon McNally.

She'll return to Tampa tonight, to greet the many new fans she made performing at Tropical Heatwave in May.

She'll start classes at Tulane in the spring, and she's heavily involved in Voice of the Wetlands, which supports the rebuilding and preservation of Louisiana's wetlands. Her birthday party, in fact, was a benefit for the group. Shaw proudly reports that the show raised $7,000 for Voice of the Wetlands.

But music will always have a place in her life.

"Music is something I believe you can't retire from," Shaw says. "You feel it. It's the connection you make with people."

ON TOUR

Amanda Shaw

& the Cute Guys

WITH: Sara Hickman

WHEN: 8 p.m., today

WHERE: Skipper's Smokehouse, 910 Skipper Road, Tampa; (913) 971-0666

COST: $15

Curtis Ross can be reached at (813) 259-7568 or cross@tampatrib.com

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