Shawn Craver is an Appalachian ballad singer, fiddler, and songwriter whose work sits at the intersection of storytelling, literature, and contemporary culture...
Appalachian Beginnings
Craver grew up in Central Appalachia hearing songs, stories, and lore from family and friends, including a some born in the 1890s. Music was woven into mountain life, and he began performing as a teenager, playing one of his first gigs in Morgantown, West Virginia, in the 1980s.
Following the Music
In the years that followed, Craver carried his guitar west, following music wherever it led. In San Francisco, he shared shows at the Owl and Monkey Coffee House with Jeff Pehrson, later of Furthur. In South Dakota, he played in fiddler Bill Peterson's Scandinavian band and Shawn's bluegrass band opened for a young Chris Thile and Nickel Creek at the Sioux River Folk Festival. A summer spent attending Merle Haggard performances in Branson, Missouri, helped shape his eclectic stage style. In Minnesota, he once worked security for guitarist Leo Kottke to get into a show.
Travel also gave Craver a new perspective on his Appalachian roots. In California, he discovered how unfamiliar the mountain music he had grown up with could be to other musicians. In Minneapolis, he met bluegrass and old-time musician Dick Kimmel, who had once lived and played in Morgantown. The connection led Craver to spend a year with Kimmel's band and play on Dick's album Fishing Creek Blues, released by Copper Creek Records in 2000.
Happenstance
Craver's recordings reflect the same spirit of happenstance. Captured by friends and fans in unconventional settings, they favor rawness and spontaneity over polished production. His songwriting on the 2000 collection, Over the Blue Ridge, recorded live in a friend's basement, earned acclaim from Bluegrass Unlimited magazine.
Shawn's focus on bluegrass shifted when he returned east in the early 2000s, settling in Virginia's Northern Shenandoah Valley. There, he sat in with Jack Sanbower, a fixture of the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., bluegrass scene. Shawn recalls trying to work his Appalachian-Celtic sound into the mix, only to have Sanbower shut it down. "He was like that. He said something like, 'If that's what you love, then play that. I play bluegrass. You want to play with me, play bluegrass.'" Shawn left the band and turned his attention to traditional fiddle tunes and Appalachian ballads.
In 2009, Craver landed in Wichita, Kansas, writing songs and playing fiddle with the Appalachian-Celtic ensemble Raging Sea. Informal recordings of his songs Raging Sea and Shillelagh (Fox's Tail), captured by the percussionist's father, helped propel the band to the North Texas Irish Festival, one of the largest traditional Irish music festivals in the United States, where they performed alongside legends Altan and Dervish.
Another original EP, When the Sun Shines, featuring How Did We Get this Far? was named one of Wichita Public Radio KMUW's "Best Local/Regional" recordings of 2017. Recorded in a Victorian house that served as the Wichita Peace and Social Justice Center, the album grew out of a friend's insistence that Craver record his songs.
His 2018 release, Fiddle and Song, a collection of centuries-old, spooky ballads and fiddle tunes, was recorded live with a single microphone in a downtown Wichita industrial flat. Tracks later appeared in Tanasi, an independent film directed by Emily Yates, executive director of Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre.
From Ballads to Literature
Craver's musical adventures eventually led him into academia, where he found traditional ballad texts appreciated not only as songs but as literature. Studying creative writing with Paris Review Poetry Prize recipient Bryan Dietrich deepened his attention to language and narrative while expanding his musical vision. He earned a degree, becoming one of the first in his family to do so. His poems have appeared in literary journals including And/Both, Coelacanth, and America's Best Emerging Poets.
A Modern Bard
Over decades of performing, Craver has shared festival stages with Altan, Bonnie Rideout, Dervish, Chris Thile, Tim O'Brien, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band, including appearances at the North Texas Irish Festival. He has also appeared alongside New York Times bestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley. His arrangements bring traditional folk narratives into conversation with literature and ideas beyond the folk tradition.
Craver is currently developing a book of poetry inspired by the Appalachian counties where he grew up: Tucker County, West Virginia, and Garrett County, Maryland. Whether performing a centuries-old ballad, an Appalachian fiddle tune, or his own work, Craver brings the humor, wit, and curiosity of a modern bard.
"My grandmother told me when I was a kid that our family were bards and kicked out of Scotland by the English centuries ago. That side of the family has been in America before the United States existed. We have deep roots in Tucker and Garrett County and music and words is a tradition...stories I don't tell because they are unbelievable to most," Craver recalls.