Shawn Camp was born on August 29th, 1966 in Little Rock Arkansas. But, a small farm ten miles outside of Perryville (the county seat of Perry County), was home for a young boy just beginning to find his way into the world, by way of a crooked little path called music.
His Mother was a beauty operator who at one time had her beauty shop in the basement of the house they lived in, and she cooked southern food as fine as anybody's Granny could. His Dad was an Ironworker, building bridges, skyscrapers, and nuclear reactor smokestacks across the country. The family moved around quite a bit during Shawn's youth, his Dad worked in different states all the time, so Shawn was always the new kid in school. With no brothers or sisters to play with, Shawn found a constant friend in his guitar, which he started playing at age 5. Both of his parents loved music and both could sing and play guitar. And they had a great collection of records that Shawn soaked up like a sponge. Influenced by the greats of Country, Bluegrass, Rock-n-Roll, Blues, Ragtime, gospel and every other thing he has logged into his musical soul, Shawn's music just sounds like him.
A gifted musician, Shawn plays fiddle, guitar, and mandolin, actually he plays a bit of almost everything musical. He's also a terrific singer.
He moved to Nashville in January of ' 87, and worked as a fiddle player with the Osborne Brothers bluegrass band. The first show he worked with them was on the stage of "The Grand Ole Opry". "I'd never been so nervous in my life, my fiddle bow was shaking so bad I could hardly play" Shawn said. He worked with them for a short stint and then started working with country acts as a sideman in the bands of such artists as Jerry Reed, Alan Jackson, Suzy Boggus, Shelby Lynne, and Trisha Yearwood, helping put together Trisha's first touring band to go on the road as an opening act for Garth Brooks in ' 91. Shawn left Trisha's band in the fall of that year and started to work on learning how to craft a song. Shortly thereafter, he landed a deal on Warner Brothers/Reprise Records and embarked on a solo career.
He recorded two albums for Warner/ Reprise in ' 93 and ' 94. The second one was never released even though the first produced two top 30 singles. He co-wrote two songs on Garth Brooks "Sevens" CD including Two Pina Coladas, which was a number one song for 3 weeks. He also co-wrote the 1999 Brooks and Dunn hit How Long Gone. Other artists who have recorded his songs include John Anderson, Mark Chesnutt, Diamond Rio, Randy Travis, Kenny Chesney, Tracy Byrd, Gary Allan and many more.
Shawn has just concluded work on an upcoming CD with his new producers Allen Reynolds and Mark Miller. They are a great team. Allen Reynolds is the producer on all of the Garth Brooks country recordings and Mark Miller has been the recording engineer for all of those recordings also. Allen is highly acclaimed throughout the music industry as one of the finest songwriter/producers in the business. Producing artists like Don Williams, Crystal Gayle, Bobby Bare, Emmy Lou Harris, Hal Ketchum, Ruby Lovett and a room full of other greats. Mark has worked with Allen as a close friend and engineer since the mid eighties. The new Shawn CD moves through a musical carnival from one end of the midway to the other. Soon to be available here on shawncamp.com
Source: http://shawncamp.com/about.htm
