Album Notes

Singer, writer, teacher, and poet Sharla June is a north Florida native who first appeared on the Tallahassee music scene with soul/punk band The Shakes, a scrappy garage ensemble that sounded like The Stooges drilling through the entire Stax/Volt catalog. Sharla went on to form Begs and Achin', a southern-fried cowpunk band who built a massive and loyal following with their stellar song-craft and rollicking live shows.

When Sharla and her guitar moved on to Athens, Georgia, she began to explore the possibilities of acoustic music. Earnestly digging into her southern roots, she learned slave songs, Bessie Smith blues, and Hank Williams, incorporating these influences into her writing while following her own, way-out, loopy muse.

Having built an extensive catalog of songs and an itch to see more of the world, she moved to Prague, where she fell in with a group of like-minded miscreants and busked her way across Europe with just her guitar and her big, black dog, Sushi. It was during this time that she and fellow traveler Traci Buckle (the duo was called Hunka Hunka) released the album Self-Help Songbook, and Sharla recorded an 8-track collection called One Hand One Crooked Finger.

Missing home, Sharla returned to the land of swamps and sink-holes, and has followed her voracious creative intelligence from one music and artistic success to the next. The Mayhaws bring together a wealth of influences, styles, and disciplines, and yet, like everything Sharla June touches, is uniquely itself--joyous and strange, wonderful and weird. We can eagerly look forward to what this particular synergy of talent, creativity, and originality will bring.

by David Ferguson