Hypersensitive, meticulous, ingenious, these superlatives to define Steve Shehan are too exiguous to describe the artist. The same as everything has an origin, Steve Shehan had parents, roots, influences, which by itself isn’t something out of the usual.
What makes this musician even more appealing, is the adventure and the struggle he has been leading since the mid seventies.
Sideman, arranger, sound engineer or road companion, he has been giving a steady caring pace for more than four decades, to a multitude of artists, singers, composers or movie directors.
His lyricism, his magic and his rigor for a job well done, reveal an audacious style which revolutionized the art of percussion and world music.
American by birth he became Parisian, when Steve Shehan is asked where he is from, his response cannot be limited to one capital:
“I was born as a Virginian, but nevertheless was Floridian, then New Yorker and Californian, born an islander born, still is”.
Globetrotter and thirsty for encounters, at a very young age, Steve Shehan paves the road to nourish his soul and confront different cultures, a theme that will follow him in the majority of his albums; from his first opus “Impression de voyages”, to V.I.S the hand crafted triptych to be released in November 2018.
Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Barcelona, Essaouira, Djanet, Berlin, Cuba, Brazil, Senegal, Lebanon, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, India, Bali, Japan – the list of countries and cities that crossed the life of Steve Shehan is immeasurable, in the same way that the love he expresses towards the craftsmen and luthiers he encountered on the winding roads of concerts, tours and acoustic safaris.
The cultures that he blends together for us to savor all along his career as a travelling artist, collide in appearance through their origins, but reunite by some magic in the majority of his compositions.
From his Bali adventures in the beginning of the eighties, he keeps an inexplicable and permanent memory, sealed forever in his way of conceiving, composing and creating music.
Bythe same token, his adventures in Djanet, soaked with the appeasing aroma oftea and the encounter with his “soul brother” Baly Othmani, Steve Shehan will never give up the forever sharing of the human richness.
As an avant-garde artist, he is also architect, project master and project owner for a certain style worthy for a generation of great men. He has got this ability to turn a few life moments into an intrusion in a world of dreams through music.
A genuine kingpin, percussionist, drummer, bass & keyboard player, Steve Shehan draws his first inspiration through the voyage, due to the interest he expresses in encounters – this human phenomenon that never leaves us unscathed.
In order to discover the versatile richness of Steve Shehan, all what needs to be done is open your hearing senses and dive into the albums and the creations of artists with a variety of styles such as: Nitin Sawhney, Léonard Bernstein, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Bruce Dunlap, Sarah K, Michael Brecker, Jamey Haddad, Steve Gadd, John MacLaughlin, Paco De Lucia, Carlos Benavente, Gorge Pardo, Youssou N’Dour, Wasis Diop, Vangelis, Jon Hassel, Marcel Khalife, Ricardo Cocciente, Akiro Inoue (with Peter Gabriel band), Riyoshi Sakamoto, Ibrahim Maalouf, Skauli Sverisson, Peter Herbert, Vladisvar Nadishana, Paul Winter, Maria D’Apparecida, Juan Manuel Serrat, Gabriel Yared, Coluche, Offering, Yves Montand, Maurad, Manzanita, Khaled, Polyphonies Corses, Polyphonies Bulgares, Salif Keita, Anoushka Shankar, Zakir Hussain, Golshifteh Farahani…
