As 2024 Draws to a Close...

As we come to the end of the year, I am looking back at what 2024 brought to me. I was blessed with a wide variety of shows and opportunities: The Martin Girls’ (with annemariementamusic.com) at the Oxford Baking Company (Turned out to be the last show ever. I still miss that venue), solo and Martin Girls shows at cafeatlantiquemilford.com, an appearance on WOWRadio, Monsters of Acoustic Rock with @zachandersenmusic at sagesoundstudios.com, Martin Girls at CTRocks Fest, a solo show at Easton Public Library, an appearance on Bill Revill’s Acoustic Blender on wesufm.org, Catstock at Best Video, the Ball Pond Music Festival, the Martin Girls at Deer Lake Festival, milfordporchfest.com, the Martin Girls at the Downtown Coffee Shop and shaynabsbythesea.com, the Christmas Tree Sale and Open House at sterlingcommunitycenter.org (artsallianceofstratford.org), and the Pass the Guitar benefit show at milfordarts.org.

The Martin Girls at Cafe Atlantique - 2/24

Ball Pond Music Festival

Cafe Atlantique-5/24

It was a wonderfully busy year for me musically, one which saw the growth of the Martin Girls, thanks to the hard work and patience of Anne Marie Menta, who’s an amazing singer, songwriter, and guitarist from the New Haven area. Anne Marie and I started doing a few shows together a couple of years ago, but in the last year or so have been adding more of our originals to our sets. I am really loving the vocal blend! The name comes from our love of the same Martin guitar model, the 000-28.

Connecticut has an extraordinary community of musicians, many of whom I have met and and have been lucky enough to share a stage with over the years. I am ever grateful for the experiences I have had and the friends I have made. The love and support I have received is the fuel that keeps me going.

For over 16 years, I have been playing online in Second Life to global audiences. Every Sunday night at 9pm eastern, I play a 90-minute show that is broadcast on Facebook Live, that I post on my page. It is still amazing to me that I can reach people across the globe while I’m playing from my basement studio. Over the years, I have made so many friends and have heard some really great music.

To the fans, I thank you for your unfailing support. There’s nothing more gratifying than seeing and meeting fans at a venue or an online show. I love that you’re listening on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, etc., and following me on social media—I love the connection. To know my music speaks to you in some way is such a gift.

What’s ahead for 2025? In January, I’m having surgery on my left hand to replace a finger joint. I have been suffering with arthritis for a couple of years and I am hoping that this will make it much easier and less painful to play chords. Recovery is about six weeks, and guitar playing two months. I’m not even going to make a guess as to when I will be playing shows again, although I have one booked in April and one in May. I have to say, this is a bit scary for me, as I am facing the unknown. Logically, though, the surgery should make a major improvement in my playing ability, and I am looking forward to that possibility.

Thank you to all of you, for being here in my 2024. Thank you to all of you who booked me for gigs this year, listened to my music, played my songs on the radio (cygnusradio.com and any others I may not know about), voiced words of encouragement, went to a show, shared a stage, and read this blog. I see you, and I appreciate you. May 2025 bring you all you have wished for.

New Song Dropping Soon!

Hello, 2022, we’re here! I’m kicking off the year with a brand new single, which releases on January 15, to Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and all the other music services. 

The song, My Last Goodbye, was written for my mom, whom we lost in September. Saying goodbye to a loved one is one of the most difficult experiences we all face. In My Last Goodbye, I addressed that feeling of words left unsaid. It has been a healing process for me, and my hope is that it will be for others as well. 

The song was recorded at Long Hill Recording by Paul Opalach and features Colin Healy on fiddle. I’m so excited share it with you!

I hope all your dreams come true in 2022! Thank you for being a part of mine!

Welcome to 2021

Ah 2021. The minute that ball dropped everything was going to be perfect again…It’s taken a bit longer for things to get back to normal than we thought. We are still baby-stepping our way back to our lives as they once were. The bright spot in this long dark winter we’ve come from is the re-emergence of live music.

I am finally playing my first show of 2021! I’ll be back at the First Congregational Church in Meriden for The Olde Church Acoustic Concert Series on May 7. I am really looking forward to playing out again, but I have been cocooned for so long it’s hard to imagine.

I wrote one song during the pandemic, called Not too Late, which was written last summer. You can find a very rough video of it on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/5WFsMYiA6lM. Hopefully, I will record it soon. I wish I had written more, but it was such a weird time for all of us.

My wish is that as the year unfolds we can resume as much of our lives as possible while still being safe. I’ve missed you all and look forward to sharing a stage with my musician friends, and sharing songs with friends and fans as often as I can.

Bridget Keane

I’m releasing a brand new song, Bridget Keane—the first one in four years. This is also the first blog post in four years…

Last June, I embarked on an ancestral journey. I was going through old emails and found one that had our family history from my Dad’s side attached to it. I took a look at it, and discovered that we had relatives that lived in Newtown, CT, which is not very far from where I live now. (Most of my family from my Dad’s side lived in the Chicago area.) I thought it would be neat to see if I could find them in Newtown. Bridget Keane was born in Ennis, County Clare in 1831. She emigrated from Ireland somewhere between 1847 and the early 1850s. She married Michael Collins and had five children here in Connecticut. Through Ancestry.com, I was able to see the Collins family on the 1860 census. I thought perhaps I could find where she was buried, as the information we have says she died in Newtown in 1862.

The C.H. Booth Library in Newtown has a large room devoted to genealogy, so that was my first stop. There were books that held records of all the burials at cemeteries in town, so I looked at those, but found no records of her burial. I went to the Newtown Town Hall next. In the Town Clerk’s office, there is a vault where all the vital records are stored. The Births, Marriages and Deaths records go all the way back to the 1700s. I searched for over an hour, but didn’t find any clues. It was extremely disappointing.

I knew from the family history we have that Michael Collins worked at a rubber factory—this was also noted on the census. We took a drive to Sandy Hook to what once was the New York Belting and Packing Company. It is now an office building, but it still looks pretty much like it did back in the 1850s. In my mind, it was the closest I could get to be where my ancestors were. The family history also provided a plot number for Michael Collins in Oakwood Cemetery in Geneseo, Illinois, so I called the cemetery, hoping they would take a picture of the Collins plot. It was really nice of them to take the time to do this, and they also sent a picture of the listing in their records book. Unfortunately, the graves and the plot are unmarked, so there’s no way of knowing if Bridget is buried there. It was the second disappointment of the day.

Michael Collins moved to Illinois and remarried not long after Bridget’s death. He had four children in his second marriage, for a total of 9 children. One of the four was my grandmother’s Dad, James Leo Collins.

This story has never left my head. I had really hoped to find something tangible from my search in Newtown. I know that Bridget Keane Collins is not actually a relative, but if it weren’t for her the rest of us wouldn’t exist. Back in November I was compelled to write the story down as a song. It went through a couple of revisions until I found the right one. The bridge in the song expresses what I felt about making a connection:

I wanted to stand where you once stood

And to cross the lines of time

Send a ripple through the lineage

That somehow connects with mine.

This song is dedicated to my Dad. It’s available on CDBaby: http://store.cdbaby.com/cd/shannonmcmahon5 and will be available on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and other outlets soon.

Thanks so much for reading this. I hope you enjoy the song.

Wishing On Planes Release Day

Today is the day Wishing On Planes is finally released. This 9-song album features a couple of old favorites and some new material, all anxious to see the light of day. I'm very excited about this release, because the last album I released was in 1996, and a sign of the times, since it was recorded on reel-to-reel. I really hope I don't wait another 20 years to release the next one. 

I worked with Paul Opalach at Long Hill Recording,  www.paulopalach.com and together we set out to bring the album to life. First, I had to get over my fear of the click track. (I think they call that WhereIsTheBeatophobia.) It turned out to be surprisingly easy with Paul on percussion. We had a lot of fun creating the mood for each song, using Paul's band of talented musician personas as well as a few friends to help tell each story. It's an amazing thing to see the life of a song grow in the recording process. You just never know where it will take you.

We certainly had a lot of laughs. I even had a chauffeur one snowy morning! Paul came to pick me up so we wouldn't miss a session. I got used to Mondays at Long Hill, to the point that I miss them now. :)

The actual CDs arrive via UPS this afternoon, but the digital format is available right now on this website via the music tab, or at CDBaby. I was hoping it would be available everywhere today, but it won't hit Amazon, Apple Music or Spotify for another few days, or perhaps even weeks. Good things come to those who wait, I suppose, but not to me. I was going to wait until then to post this blog, but somehow I just couldn't. Hope you enjoy the new album. I'll have it with me at The Outer Space in Hamden on May 13.