Album Notes

Oil and water. It's all about contrasts for Andy Sheppard. He coaxes brave new sounds from a converted '69 Martin steel guitar and a late-model laptop. He smashes folk and world music together with found sounds and stompbox loops. He sings out lyrics of a childhood in tobacco country and stirs them together with world-wandering stories from Africa and Asia. His latest live album (to be released November '08) is a slide guitar manifesto - by turns delicate and reckless, sweet but heavy on the beat. Songs tinged with the gentlemanly humour and global twang of Ry Cooder, and the sparkling desperation of Sufjan Stevens. Oil and water.

Andy Sheppard won the 2006 Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award. He was a finalist in the 2008 Mountain Stage NewSong Competition. He will be on tour in the UK and across Canada in 2008 with three other world-class guitarists as part of International Guitar Night.

"a strong but nuanced sense of pulse and a gift for lovely melodies"
Guitar Player Magazine

"a tremendous guitarist"
Matt Galloway - CBC Radio, Toronto.

"a mellifluous guitarist whose influences run the gamut from folk to blues to bluegrass, to sounds from Brazil, Africa, and the South Pacific"
John Kendle - Uptown Magazine, Winnipeg

"a masterful fingerstyle guitarist"
Whole Note Magazine

"a true instrumental virtuoso"
Jeff Robson - UMFM Radio, Winnipeg

"a jaw-droppingly great show - stunning solo work"
Dominic Lloyd - West End Cultural Centre, Winnipeg