Shane Hennessy at Crosstown Arts

1350 Concourse Avenue,Memphis TN 38104

19 August, 2022

Description

The Green Room at Crosstown Arts Friday, August 19, 2022 Doors open at 7pm | Show at 7:30pm Tickets: $15 advance | $20 day of the show Irish virtuoso guitarist Shane Hennessy has established himself as one of the leading guitarists on the world stage, known widely for his fingerstyle, flatpicking, and percussive guitar-playing approaches. His energetic live performances and his cinematically-vivid compositions tie in influences from Bach to Beyoncé – and everything in between! With a unique style of solo guitar playing that encompasses the range of a whole band – covering drums, bass, rhythm and lead lines – Shane builds a complete sonic world entirely on his own. Billed as “one of the most exciting live performers of his generation, with an ability to move between styles and genres with ease” by Irish Music Magazine, audiences can never be too sure what will come next during the exciting mix of jazz, blues, country, soul, traditional Irish music, and world music he offers. With the addition of some smooth vocals, genre-hopping improvisations, and well-arranged covers, it makes sense why music legend super-producer Nile Rodgers (CHIC) thinks that “his style is killer, it’s really cool stuff”, and why guitar legend Tommy Emmanuel says that Shane “transcends the guitar the same way Muhammed Ali transcended boxing”. Shane's style of acoustic guitar playing is difficult to explain without experiencing it. It's essentially a one-man-band approach to the instrument, usually covered by the catch-all term "fingerstyle" guitar. Shane’s style incorporates traits from almost every genre of music, tied together by a unique, energetic fingerpicking, flatpicking, and percussive style. At any one time, there is usually a distinguishable bass line, melody, chordal information, and a percussive groove happening, without the help of loops. In his repertoire, Shane touches on everything from jazz and classical pieces to blues and bluegrass, with Irish traditional, jazz manouche, progressive, and world influences thrown in the mix, as well as periodic bursts of energetic improvisation, and arrangements of well-known songs. He cites musicians such as Chris Thile, David Grier, and Mark Knopfler - as well as Tommy Emmanuel, Nile Rodgers, and James Taylor - as his biggest guitar influences. His musical style has in recent time progressed to a more contemporary groove-based sound with progressive jazz and world influences, citing CHIC, Snarky Puppy, Punch Brothers, Steely Dan, Prince, and numerous world musics as influences on his style of playing and composing.