Shawn Williams at Martin’s Downtown

New Orleans’ pioneering voice in “alt-rocka countrybilly serial killer blues,” Shawn Williams sounds like the result of a dirtier-minded Elvis deciding to get it on in the back of some roadhouse saloon with one of those sad-eyed cowboy types that would rather be drinking alone.

Williams’ new album (Aug. 2020) The Fear of Living. The Fear of Loving., where seven of the nine songs were written in a week at the beginning of the Covid shutdown, was recorded and mixed by her on her phone, as she played all of the instruments.

Brett Milano with OffBeat Magazine said in a review of the third album, “it is a beautifully cathartic one, with some lovingly crafted songs and even some flashes of dark humor…”

Shawn’s sophomore release Motel Livin’ was named as one of the ‘Top 50 Albums of 2018’ by OffBeat Magazine, and named as one of the ‘Top 10 Albums of 2018’ in Europe’s Country Music People magazine.

Williams’ sophomore release Motel Livin’ (June 2018) “throbs with some of 2018’s best-written songs,” says Europe’s Country Music People magazine.

Her debut album Shadow (March 2017) is a skillfully-mastered collection of originals that moves seamlessly from old-school R&B-inflected rockers to softer, wistful numbers that evoke the broken-hearted melancholia of the desert. Idiosyncratic, catchy, and rich with local talent, the tracks showcase Williams’ impressive musicianship and unique capabilities as a songwriter. New Orleans’ OffBeat Magazine says, “it’s an impressively mature debut album”.

On recording as in live performance, she conveys a sense of rawness, a depth of feeling, and a lack of pretension that set her apart from the rest of the city’s pool of talented up-and-coming musicians.

Shawn has opened for international touring artists such as the Queen of Rockabilly – Wanda Jackson, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, Corey Smith, John Paul Keith, The Accidentals, The Way Down Wanderers, Loverboy, and more.

She’s been honored to be nominated two years in a row, 2018 and 2019, for OffBeat Magazine Best of the Beat awards.

Kicking off 2020 touring in Sweden, Williams will be spending the remainder of the year continuing playing around her hometown of New Orleans and touring Europe in the summer.

Aside from her own music, she is also the founder of the all-female Elvis tribute band, Pelvis Breastlies.

An accomplished career in radio has taken her from Atlanta to New York City and back to her hometown of New Orleans, where she marked success as the former programming director for two of the city’s largest radio stations (NASH FM 92.3 and 106.1 the underground), all the while managing to maintain gigging/writing/drinking schedule required of a young bandleader in a vibrant night town.