2010 was a fantastic year for Portland-based band, Keegan Smith & the Fam. Smith won Male Artist of the Year for the second year in a row at the Portland Music Awards after his band took home the award for Best Live Performance in 2009. The band showcased at the 9th annual 2010 Florida Music Festival in Orlando and received rave reviews from attending industry reps and festival organizers. Jim Abbott, music critic at Florida's Orlando Sentinel says Keegan Smith & the Fam were “a captivating surprise from the Pacific Northwest” and “the find of the festival.” Keegan and the band were also featured in each televised pre-game show during the 2009-2010 Portland Trailblazer season.
2011 is already shaping up to be an amazing one as well, with the band taking home yet another award for Best Live Performance in the 2011 Portland Music Awards, and four of Smith’s songs will appear on the soundtrack to the new movie “The Frankenstein Brothers”, due to be released in late fall 2011. They have also been commissioned to create the entire soundtrack for a documentary called "Green Light: The Sustainable Oroville Project", due out in early 2012.
Keegan is the charismatic front man of an extremely talented group of veteran musical heavyweights, producers, and bandleaders from the Northwest's thriving music scene. He creates an energetic and entertaining sound that captivates audiences of every age. Orlando Sentinel's music critic again says, “this is a band of monster players.” Portland's Willamette Week reviews the Fam saying, “[their] stuff is like musical summer” and “life's a little sunnier when listening to them.”
"Special Delivery", Keegan Smith's 2009 studio album release, documents the hardships, physical struggles, and pure, unabashed joy associated with being a new parent. The album displays Smith's art form poetically, while stylistically flowing between the genres of acoustic pop, disco-funk, and reggae-blues, all while infusing an electronic backdrop to create an ethereal, ear-pleasing experience. "Special Delivery" has won three different categories in the World Wide Effigy Awards: Best Adult Contemporary Song ("Morning Comes"), Best Reggae Song ("Just Fine") and Best Adult Contemporary Artist. They were nominated for Best Adult Contemporary Song ("Smile") in the 2009 Hollywood Music in Media Awards and walked their first red carpet at LA's famous Kodak Theater in November. The song "Smile" was also a finalist in this year's Pop and Adult Contemporary categories for the Great American Song contest.
In the time between touring, playing festivals, and holding down their long-time Monday night residency show in Portland, Keegan and the Fam are writing and recording material for a new live and studio album to be released later this year.
Read more...