SHAWN CRAVER

Shawn Craver's ability to lead an audience from melancholy to outright dancing with his humorous and hypnotic stage presence makes him one of the most dynamic performers in traditional music today.  Born into a musical family on a mountain 3000 feet above sea level below the Mason Dixon Line, Appalachian musician Shawn Craver has spent the last 3 and 1/2 decades carving out a living with music coast to coast. From the little stage at the Mt. Grove, West Virginia bluegrass festival to the giant stages of the North Texas Irish Festival, he's had train song duels on trains with porters, written songs recorded by unknown bluegrass bands, played for Senators in Maryland, lived in a cave in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, busked for summer wages in Branson, played railroad festivals, Churches, paid his rent with rock-n-roll, sung his way from Santa Fe to Yosemite, wooed the daughter of a West Virginia sheep farmer with a genuine folk song, and once turned down a chance to play on The Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour because the host requested that Shawn "not sing". Shawn has shared concert and festival stages with the likes of Chris Thile, bluegrass legend Tim O'Brien, and Ireland's beloved Altan. A master Appalachian ballad singer and instrumentalist, Shawn is a 5 time Maryland State banjo (old-time) champion, Mid-Atlantic mandolin champion, and a recent main-stage performer at the Kansas State fiddle championship. 

A musical scholar of his region's music, Shawn grew up in 1970s Appalachia and carries a lifetime of fiddle music, songs, and lore learned from friends and family in the Potomac and Allegheny Highlands of Western Maryland and West Virginia.  
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A wordsmith as well, Shawn Craver is a published poet, holds a Masters in Theology, and recently served as a panelist with New York Times best selling author Maria Davanah Headley.  Shawn Craver's short stories and poems have appeared in Coelacanth Literary Journal, And/Both Magazine, Garrett College Literary Journal, Outrider Podcast, and America's Best Emerging Writers.

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Shawn is available for master class instrument lessons, shows, interviews, and speaking engagements.

 Read a recent interview with Shawn here...