Shad Harris
Shad is a 40-year, semi-retired veteran of the Blues. At the age of 50 he retired from the road and went back to school and completed his degree in liberal arts.
He now plays regularly with his West Coast Blues Band, "The Groovenators" and writes incessantly from his home in Stockton, California, where he also teaches music to elementary and middle school students, by way of the Blues.
He now plays regularly with his West Coast Blues Band, "The Groovenators" and writes incessantly from his home in Stockton, California, where he also teaches music to elementary and middle school students, by way of the Blues.
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Articles by Shad Harris
January 04, 2008
It’s been way too long since I’ve made any noise but the time away has been well spent. It feels like a year has passed so I’ll start with events occurring around January of ’07.
There was one gig that month. It was with Rhythm Deluxe at Babe’s in Livermore, CA. Babe’s is always a blast and that ni...
February 07, 2007
The past month I was so busy that I wasn’t able to make a January contribution to my public journal. So this is a belated Happy New Year greeting and attempt to catch up. I started the year in bed, asleep. It was great! I hadn’t done that for as long as I can remember. For the better part of the pas...
December 15, 2006
Well, we finally moved into our brand new house. Now comes the fun part, unloading and unpacking and setting up shop. Luckily I don’t have a whole lot of gigs to get in the way. Man, who’d of thought I’d ever utter that phrase?
Not gigging is not as bad these days as it was when I had to do it fo...
November 04, 2006
These past few weeks have reminded me that I am not a youngster anymore. Not that I’m an OLD man mind you, but you certainly wouldn’t refer to me as a kid, unless you are over 70. Nonetheless, I was able to crawl through the rest of October on all fours and make it to November.
I guess the bigges...
October 10, 2006
Okay, it’s taken me a couple of days to fully digest the weekend’s events because they were so remarkable, and because when I actually sat and thought it through the really amazing aspect that stood out was, no one got hurt.
There’s an axiom that says, “When it rains, it pours.” It’s one of those...
September 10, 2006
August is gone and September looms. Our new house is complete but we still can’t move in because there’s a significant amount of “finish work” still to be done.
I started the past month out by teaching beginning guitar students at San Joaquin Delta College’s Kid’s College program. It was really g...
August 11, 2006
You know, August came a lot quicker this year than ever before. I mean, I know it followed July just like always, but the first week is already gone and I’m still sorting through July’s events.
I guess that means that July was pretty eventful. Well, it started with a great family reunion/Birthday...
July 10, 2006
This was the best month of the year. We welcomed our first granddaughter, Riley Anise Chadwick, into the world on June 17th at 11:42 PM and my wife and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary on the 19th.
I have to acknowledge, before I go any further, the fact that the main reason we’ve laste...
June 26, 2006
The first few days of May were slow compared to how the month finally turned out. I discovered that the Thursday night jam at Fat’s Grill has been cancelled and replaced with a comedian. C’est la Vie! Or as they continue to say in my old neighborhood, “Another one bites the dust!”
Saturday the 20...
May 09, 2006
Despite rumors to the contrary contemporary music is very much alive and well in Mudville. It?s true that there is a woeful lack of venues that exist and the ones that do are casual at best in their promotion of live entertainment. That?s probably because to this point the previous city administrati...
April 17, 2006
I went to a couple of Blues Jam’s at Fat’s Grill this month. Fat’s is located in Pershing Square on the SW corner of Pershing Ave. and March Lane, in Stockton. The house band at the weekly jam is, The Brothers from Other Mother’s. Usually that means, Jerry Jordan on drums, Mike Torres on guitar, Art...
March 21, 2006
I was in to see my chiropractor the other day and he wanted me to tell him some stories about my days on the road with the various bands with whom I played. I thought about it for a couple of seconds and I realized that those times are long gone and my memory of the alleged adventures is tenuous at ...
February 20, 2006
Greetings from exile. I’m still “living out of my suitcase”. It’s as if I’m on an extended road trip except I’m not really going anywhere. Now I don’t want to get into a dissertation about city politics, but that almost seems impossible these days, no matter where one lives. I just want to know wher...
January 09, 2006
Christmas day was awesome again. Now that I’m a grandfather, the focus for Christmas is all about my grandsons. The emphasis is still on the family, but my kids are all grown now so it’s time to pass on my Christmas spiel to the next generation. It’s a good one, all about peace, love, harmony, and h...
December 10, 2005
I have to be honest, a lot of cats just don’t want to be away from family on Christmas these days and New Years Eve ain’t what it used to be. But if you like the Blues and you live in Northern California you can’t go wrong checking these guys out.
Ron Thompson will be at the Torch Club in Sacrame...
December 01, 2005
Greetings fellow music lovers, I first want to clear up something. In my last report I misspelled the first name of the leader of the group about whom I wrote. The correct spelling is Fil Lorenz. Everything I said about him and his Soul-tet still applies and I have called him and apologized for the ...
November 14, 2005
I’ve had a very busy two weeks. I made the move from the house in which my wife and I raised three of our children into temporary lodgings on the north side of town. It was traumatic but we survived. The vision of our new home, three or four months from now on the same site is what’s keeping us goin...
November 01, 2005
Whew, I finally found a couple of minutes of free time so I can report what’s been going on since the benefit in Merced. I’m in the middle of moving and that is dominating everything else in my world. But life goes on no matter my circumstances.
So, the After School Arts Program (A.S.A.P.) was re...
October 04, 2005
I am always willing to perform for a good cause so when Gary Hamilton asked me to participate in a concert benefiting hurricane victims I agreed. Gary and I joined bassist Dan Rogers and drummer Rudy Moreno for a set of Blues that was part of a show that featured Big Band, Dixieland, and Ensemble Ja...
September 21, 2005
Rick Wilson, and his beautiful wife Linda, hosted the 12th Annual Rumsey Blues Festival that was for me, the completion of a circle. I’ve played the Blues in the town of Rumsey, California on several occasions over the last dozen years the start of which was a backyard birthday party and the beginni...
September 18, 2005
Working ones show is a step above just doing ones job. Working ones show requires a certain confidence and attitude that only comes with experience. I don’t want to come off as biased but I have to admit I felt like the proud big brother as Little Sister lead-singer Christine Enos proceeded to exhib...
September 07, 2005
I recently got a call from Christine Enos of “Little Sister and the Bad Intentions”. She asked if I would be able to play the second weekend of September with her and her great band at the Annual Port Release party of Madrona Vineyards in Camino and the Pittsburg Seafood Festival.
I first met Chr...
September 06, 2005
I was thinking about it the other day and I realized that now that I’m supposed to be retired I might be busier than ever. Okay, probably not ever, there was that five-year stint with the Castro band when we worked 300 days per year for three years in a row. Then there was the period between 1976 an...
August 30, 2005
August 27, 2005, Union City, CA. “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” That actually wasn’t the coolest line of the ceremony for me, the coolest line was… Wait; by the time I got to that point in the day, I was pretty much burnt toast. Let me explain. I started the day of the wedding, as I had the...
August 21, 2005
August 20, 2005, Oakdale, CA. The Sierra Train Tours Company offers a three or four-hour train ride into the Stanislaus County countryside complete with a dinner and live entertainment. That entertainment Saturday night was “Hambone”, Gary Hamilton, Mike Gnapp, (pronounced guh-nap) Tom Rose, and you...
August 15, 2005
Okay, this is the last of the series on going back to work after retirement. Working as a janitor these past weeks, has given me a perspective of humanity, that I’ve seldom considered, and I don’t want to get used to, in particular people are filthy.
I know that sounds a bit harsh and it’s a gene...
August 14, 2005
I took a half hour off from my “day-job” Friday so I could play a gig with “Hambone” at the Harley-Davidson showroom in Stockton, California. It was a promotional fundraiser for the Stockton Hospice. I don’t play drums any more but I still get around pretty good on keyboard and my voice is still str...
August 11, 2005
About twenty-five years ago I was a cigarette smoker. I smoked Pall Mall’s, Camel’s (the short ones), and Lucky Strikes in that order of preference. I got up to a “pack-a-day” before I started the quitting régime. I’d stop for a week or two and then get an urge for a smoke, capitulate, get the “guil...
August 01, 2005
“Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.”
As I’ve grown older and supposedly wiser I think I’ve mellowed. Although I am not feeling my mortality as such, I can say with some certa...
August 01, 2005
It’s been a week. After the first three nights of working as a janitor at a local drugstore, every muscle and joint in my body hurt. I was in so much agony, my hair hurt. Going in on that fourth night was the result of divine intervention. I expected some aches and pains, but not to this degree. In ...
July 28, 2005
I decided to take a job as a janitor at a local drugstore. Ostensibly the move was designed to raise a little extra cash because my two oldest daughters are getting married this summer, and back-to-back weddings are expensive even when they’re “small intimate affairs.” The hidden personal agenda tho...
July 21, 2005
I get most of my topic ideas from conversations that I have with my “brain trust”. It’s a group of guys of different ages, socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds that sporadically get together and sit around the concrete picnic table in the park to play dominoes and discuss matters that cover a wide ...
July 17, 2005
I finally realized why it is so difficult to discuss religion with any kind of objectivity. It was a letter to the editor in the local paper that crystallized if for me. The writer asked, “Which is better? Being created by a loving God or evolving from pond slime? Accepting God and looking forward t...
July 15, 2005
The spirit of fairness supposedly, actually does apply in a competition that is allegedly, “purely for the sport”. So, it makes sense that certain rules should be in place that keeps the playing field level for amateur athletes.
Pro Sports on the other hand is a commercial enterprise. Right away...
July 14, 2005
Freedom is an interesting concept. One definition I found in my Webster’s reads “the power to determine action without restraint.” There are sixteen other variations of that statement in my dictionary and then a section of synonyms. That section lists the synonyms, independence and liberty first and...
July 12, 2005
I like puzzles and conundrums so a good conspiracy theory is particularly enjoyable to me. One of the characteristics of a conspiracy I find intriguing is, a sole individual usually conceives the genesis of the scheme but unlike a collaboration, where the members act in inclusive harmony to reach a ...
July 11, 2005
The Theory of Evolution probably goes farther than any other theory in explaining the cycle of life on earth. Using recorded and documented, scientific observation, men and women have been able to extrapolate ideas, formulate hypotheses, and then design conclusions and probable outcomes. This, in es...
July 09, 2005
When youngsters today hear “old people” like me talk about the sixties, the images that probably come to mind are the ones that got all the TV time from the middle 60’s on. The issues surrounding the civil rights movement and the war in Viet Nam were the main focus of television news producers betwe...
July 06, 2005
Displaying signs that she has fully embraced the concept of capitalism, a Russian astrologer according to an Associated Press story has filed a lawsuit against NASA because the recently launched Deep Impact probe that collided with a comet in space on July 4, this year will “deform her horoscope.”
...
July 05, 2005
Truth seekers all eventually come to the same intersection. Truth of its own accord is a concept that is flexible and adaptable to extenuating circumstances. There are always at least two versions of the truth. There’s the known truth and then there’s unknown the truth. Contrary to what the pragmati...
July 02, 2005
With the Fourth of July Holiday weekend upon us I thought it might be nice to write a little something in celebration of Independence. Oh, not of this great country of ours, but parental independence. One could draw the analogy that America is the unruly child of Great Britain. King George must ha...
June 30, 2005
When I was an elementary school pupil, I was graded for citizenship. Granted, that was a different era but the fact that citizenship was a standard to which I had to pay attention and on which I had to focus some effort, did help to shape the person I have become.
Now I am a grandfather and my ol...
June 29, 2005
I suggested to my wife, that solving disputes by engaging in war seemed ridiculous. I wondered aloud, from where did that logic come, how was it conceived? She responded sardonically, “The purpose of war is not to solve disputes but to end them.” My first reaction was “that’s redundant!” After consi...
June 27, 2005
The 2006 congressional vote is nearing and with a special election scheduled in a few months the California campaign season has opened earlier than usual. I urge all of you that participate in the voting process to keep a scorecard. Every time a candidate makes a promise mark it down and hold him or...
June 24, 2005
With both sides of the various warring factions in the Middle East and elsewhere on the globe claiming a desire for peace, I’m prompted to ask what exactly is peace? Amid all the media coverage about the brutal conflicts and massive loss of life, the call for peace is universal. Yet the definition o...
June 23, 2005
Change is often unpleasantly disrupting especially when it’s unplanned. One characteristic of change that’s frequently irritating is its inevitability. The old adage “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” is a truism not truly appreciated until the latter years of ones life.
It’s...