Nobody

Champagne Taste on Lemonade Pay

A 2am, too much bourbon, cheap motel, feeling sorry for myself kind of song...

Mockingbird

The mighty Mississippi just blew me away! I crossed it on the way to St Louis, and then later on in Memphis. There is something about this extraordinary body of water that makes you want to follow it all the way down through New Orleans and on to the Gulf of Mexico...

Ride The Mississippi

I stopped for a bite to eat in the town of Pueblo, Colorado. I was talking to a lady who was one half of a biker couple. she told me how getting a Harley Davidson XL1200T had changed her life and set her free.

When Ginny Gets Her Wings

I started writing this whilst travelling through Texas. When people asked me if I was travelling with a band, I would say "No, just me, a car and a guitar". It was finished off in Nashville with a young songwriter by the name of Ty James, and then polished to within an inch of its life by my sister, Jules.

Travelling Man

The first verse to this was written in Nashville; the second verse in Phoenix; the final verse in Omaha.

When The Rain Came Down

I was driving from Memphis to Phoenix and stopped the night in Tucumcari (for no other reason than it's mentioned in the Little Feat song Willin'). I'd been on tour for 2 month and it was my wedding anniversary. I wrote this song as I watched the sun go down...

Tucumcari Sunset

After a drunken night out in Kansas City Missouri, my friend Matt bought me a ticket to a concert at a local venue to see The Mavericks. The trouble was I was leaving for Nebraska the next day. "Now you have to come back" he said. So I did... again and again and again...

Kansas City Won't Let Me Go

I'd been on the road for a couple of months. As much as I was having the time of my life, I was starting to miss home. This was compounded by the venue in Santa Fe giving me a bottle of Jim Beam whisky after my show...

Santa Fe Sadness

I penned this after a visit to Muscle Shoals on the banks for the Tennessee River. The local native American tribe call it the Singing River. There are two recording studios in the area which between them have produced a dizzying amount of hit records. There must be something in the water...

Set Me Down By The Singing River

I was staying very close to some rail tracks. I was sitting playing my guitar in my room when I heard the sound of a train whistle. It just sounded so iconic; so American. So I wrote this song...

Rambling Days

Tony James Shevlin is an Anglo-Irish singer-songwriter who has been a professional musician for most of his adult life, and has performed around the world, from Europe to Russia, Africa, America, the Middle East and Australia. Along the way he’s had songs used by Amnesty International, The Troggs and REM.

In 2015 Tony toured the US with his album Songs From the Last Chance Saloon – an album which brings together his influences of growing up in an Irish household, listening to the Beatles and Marty Robbins. Whilst out on the road, he wrote 11 songs – one for each thousand of the 11,000 miles he drove across the country. These songs featured on the 2017 album American Odyssey, many of the songs name-checking cities that he passed through such as Santa Fe Sadness, Tucumcari Sunset and Kansas City Won’t Let Me Go.

The Daily Country called American Odyssey “an outsider’s love letter to the United States.” Americana UK called it “a sonic postcard… Anglo Americana travelogue that hits the spot…” while RnR Magazine concluded “It’s like listening to a musical roadmap and at each stop there’s a good song with something to say.”

Tony splits his time between the UK playing with his backing band The Chancers and the US where he plays solo house concerts.

TJS

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