Remembering Shel Silverstein
Posted almost 5 years ago
Shel Silverstein was really one of the first musical artists I admired. In elementary school we would listen to his records and read his books like "A Light In The Attic" and "Where The Sidewalk Ends" (all of which he illustrated himself). Shel had so many interesting ideas and strange humor in his work. He was sort of the hippie version of Dr Seuss. I wasnt aware then, but as well as writing/recording books for kids, he also penned lyrics for pop musicians like Johnny Cash, Dr Hook and The Medicine Show and The Irish Rovers. Shel's style of storytelling was both offbeat and universally identifiable (like Dr Seuss) and it was very fun to listen to if you were a child or an adult. Shel made his recording debut in 1959 with Hairy Jazz, an album which featured his gravelly, screechy unique vocal talents. He was accompanied by The Red Onion Jazz Band. Later on, Shel was an ambassador for none other than Playboy Magazine and during this time he would travel back and forth from his home in Chicago to his place in Greenwich Village. Shel would frequent the coffeehouse/folk clubs where he fell in with the music going on and he had several songs he wrote recorded by artists like Judy Collins, the Chad Mitchell Trio, The Brothers Four and The Smothers Brothers. The first hit single penned by Shel was "The Unicorn" covered by The Irish Rovers in 1968. At the time, hardly anyone knew that Shel, a hippy cartoonist from Chicago had written the mythic folk song. Shel had been recording several albums and most of them werent selling too much, but strangely enough the people who were most interested in Shels work were singer/songwriters from the music scene in Nashville, TN. Shel quickly came to be friends with Southern musicians like Harlan Howard, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Chet Atkins. Shel also co-wrote alot of music with actor/musician Kris Kristofferson. One of Shel's most popular penned songs is
"A Boy Named Sue" which became a tremendous hit for Johnny Cash. Noone could quite write or sing like Shel, he had a very distinct style to his poems/song lyrics. You almost know that its a Shel song from the words and melody. This post is dedicated to Shel and his wonderful music.
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Comments (18)
Shel has always been a fave! Thanks for posting this.
:=)