Shannon Saunders: Reviews

Canada's Shannon Saunders & The Splinters have recently released their second CD COLD NOVEMBER (SAS20042) Listening to Shannon and her band is a refreshing experience. It is so good to see an artist make a record with her own band instead of bringing in hired guns.
Shannon plays fiddle, upright bass, organ, accordion and ukulele and is joined by Steve Mitchell on lead and rythm guitar, drummer Ed Sewell, master picker Cam Salay on banjo, Steve Dawson on Weissenborn and slide guitar and Brad Gillard on bass. Put all this together and you've got one good kickin' country band. Put beautiful strawberry blond Shannon out front with her beautiful voice multi-instrumental skills and this just plain works.
In style it ranges from driving bluegrass instrumentals (I-Ninety, Bell Housing) to haunting lyrical ballads (I Never Walk If I Can Ride and Chestnut Skies).
Classic country, Americanna rootsy music performed by a talented group that is worth seeking out.

This is smooth British Columbia bluegrass and more from a fine Vancouver fiddler and singer who's also a longtime member of The Paperboys. Shannon Saunders is a smokey-voiced singer with a Norah Jones-like depth in her voice, and her songwriting and fiddling draw from country, gospel, and Celtic sources as well as traditional bluegrass roots. There's plenty of down-home fiddle, banjo, and high harmonies on this disk, like on the travelling song "See You in the Morning" and "San Juan Worm", a classic breakdown featuring Splinters banjo player Cam Salay, plus some different sounds too, like the traditional "Dark Hollow" arranged as a midtempo shuffle with slide guitar, or the slow, meditative fiddle tune "Bell Housing". Don't worry about getting splinters in your fingers; Cold November is a disk that fans of modern bluegrass will want to grab.
(TN) Dirty Linen 2004

The Yellow Book
Shannon Saunders in the talented fiddler from the hot Vancouver folk-rock band The Paperboys. On this acoustic disc she returns to her roots in bluegrass with a fast-paced collection of mostly original songs and instrumentals, adding a couple of traditional Celtic tunes and a Gordon Lightfoot cover for variety. Aside from fiddle on all tracks, she also overdubs some accordion, bass, and cello, and she's joined by a backing group that includes fellow Paperboys Cam Salay on banjo and bass and Tom Landa on guitar. The title track is a high-flying bluegrass breakdown with some sparkling fiddle/banjo interplay, while "Blue Slate Hills" is a dark -edged Applachian-style homecoming song. The Irish tune "Haste to the Wedding" leads off a fleet jig medley. A plaintive, searching minor-key gospel song called "Angel" closes the set.
Dirty Linen
#91 - December 2000/January 2001