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.

Midyear Report Card 2013

Here it is June already - almost July, even, and yet this is my first blog post. Shameful, I know. If this were a true midterm report, I guess I would be failing, starting with my promise to write more regular blog posts.  I set a lot of goals for myself, none of which have been realized...yet. I submitted to several festivals via Reverbnation and SonicBids, to no avail. I entered each with hope and submitted my songs with pride, but received the ubiquitous "Thanks, but no thanks," e-mail on all of them. However, I did get one yes from http://www.mvyradio.com/local_musicafe/, allowing me to post Emotional Vampire and Anyway on their site. Both songs are available for free download for as long as the songs are posted there.

Second Life has given me many fans and friends from all over the world. I am amazed at the wide range of talented musicians there, and I am lucky to count them as my friends. I was honored to be asked to participate in a project that commemorated the 4th anniversary of a band named SOAR from Australia. I recorded two songs, Brindabella and I Fall. The songs I recorded as well as the songs done by other musicians can be found here: http://www.brightoh.com/Bright/ANNIVERSARY.html.

April and May were crazy months full of shows at places like SoNo Caffeine, Two Boots, The Outer Space, Klekolo World Coffee, Huntington Street Cafe, Neverending Books and the All-American Valley General Store. I don't think I ever had that many gigs in one month, but I enjoyed it. It's usually feast or famine around here.

I have enjoyed being part of the Singer/Songwriter night at Two Boots. I have played there three times in the last couple of months, including last night, which was a great night, even though I missed game 6 of the Chicago Blackhawks - Boston Bruins Stanley Cup finals. A reporter from Fairfield County Weekly was there writing a story about the series. Maybe I'll get a little publicity...

Sadly, I have not done any songwriting. I wish I could find the inspiration, but nothing has come. I keep trying. An idea did spring to mind the other day, and I wrote it down. Perhaps I can make that into something. When I write songs, there is an endless pressure for each song to be good, so fear can sometimes deter me. Speaking of songs, I submitted The Test to Sandy Hook Songs for Hope. They had six slots open for songs to appear on their CD, and I would be so honored to be chosen as one of those. They will announce the chosen songs on Sunday June 30th at 8pm on Jon Stein's "Hootenanny Radio Cafe," WTBQ, Warwick, NY (1110 AM, 93.5 FM) and www.WTBQ.com.

Upcoming Shows:

July 1: Horseshoe Cafe, Southport, CT 9pm (open mic featured performer)

July 23: Klekolo World Coffee, Middletown, CT 7-9pm

October 18: Artsquest/Steel Stacks Creativity Commons Bethelehem, PA 8-11pm

November 5: Klekolo World Coffee, Middletown, CT

I am hoping the second half of the year will provide me with more opportunities to reach the goals I have set, or even introduce some new ones. As always, thanks so much for your continued support. I couldn't do any of this without you!