Shawn Pittman
My Journey
Continental Record Services/Must Have Music

Full-Bodied Hard Rocking, School of Hard Knock Blues

Dallas-based blues man, guitarist and songwriter Shawn Pittman has been making albums since 1998. Good ones too.
His latest, My Journey follows Hard Road (2023) and Stompin’ Solo (2021) and before that ten or so more albums dating back to his 1996 debut Blues From Dallas. Oklahoma-born, Pittman was also born into his native roots of the Choctaw Nation in Talihina.

Pittman’s amazing journey has taken him from playing for tips, mainly on 6th Street in Austin; to gigs three times a week at the Riverwalk in San Antonio; by way of gaining a standing ovation at the Fillmore in San Francisco, to opening two nights for B.B King at the House Of Blues in Houston and a gig at a pier in Bordeaux, plus playing, as the front man one night in Double Trouble to countless gigs both sides of the Atlantic.

His stinging lead electric guitar, as you would expect, R.O.C.K’s. His guitar peppers the album, and with stellar support from bassist, Erkan Ozdemir, Roel Spanjers (piano, plus accordion on Heartbreak East Dallas). Simon Oslender adds organ on numerous tracks with Levent Ozdemir on drums, all making the Bonn, Germany recorded album a real powerhouse affair.

All songs are written by Pittman, other than Little Milton’s That’s What Love Will Make You Do, and for the first time recorded with a band, Lewis Dickson’s Somebody’s Gonna Lose, Somebody’s Gonna Win.

Until The Time Is Right warms up nicely with organ, lead electric guitar and an incessant rhythm aid his Blues steeped journeyman vocals. Prone to slipping into a ‘jam’ mode at times, he isn’t afraid of tearing it up on electric lead guitar when required. 

Damage Is Done produces some of his finest vocals, and with a hooky rhythm and usual brilliant lead guitar solo it cooks. Arguably, his finest entry. It speaks of a break down of a relationship. Superb track.

Likewise, Add It Up with its infectious hooks is a killer with a great rocking blues beat as Pittman serves up a tasty recipe. For his lyric, ’just add it up’ you could just as easily have Jagger singing, ‘start me up!’ Superb piano, too. 
Heartbreak In East Dallas opens akin to something Chuck Berry could have bought into. A wonderful rhythm, sublime piano, lead guitar etc, and there’s accordion too, making it Louisiana ‘sounding’. What a pure, clean sound is obtained… excellent vocals and lyrics, what more could one ask for?

The swaggering, Blame It On Me has The Texas Horns (Mark ‘Kaz’ Kazanoff and John Mills) join the fun, and with Pittman lapping up the support, the listener can’t help but become hooked on the restless, brooding sound as his lead electric guitar, piano and pounding rhythm add a layer of excellence to the track. 

Tabletop is typical R&B, with sweltering organ cooking a chunky rhythm, searing lead electric guitar the instrumental track has the band strutting their stuff.
Live, it will be a good band introduction number.
As we move on, Low No More enjoys an incessant rhythm that sets up the song,
‘like putting your hand on a fiery stove,
rolling around in a poison oak’… 
‘don’t want to feel that low no more (repeated a ‘few’ times)’
he sings as he wishes he had made better decisions in his life.

The ‘Meat and potato’ primed, R&B Countin’ Them Days is swathed in swirling organ, exceptional lead guitar and a finely assembled rhythm section making for a mighty big track. (More)

An auto-biographical My Journey opens in simmering fashion as he speaks of travelling, and how his journey is ‘his witness’, and heartache ‘his best friend’. Standing on the shoulder of the best that there’s ever been, Pittman tells of playing on the street, and in general how he learnt his trade with blood, sweat and tears being lost on the way as he ‘paid his dues;’ closing in a subdued fashion it’s some track! 

Somebody’s Gonna Lose is a real ‘rocking Blues’ affair; unrelenting, with bruising lead guitar beating a clear pathway, alongside a fearless and at times pulsating rhythm. It’ll be just great heard live. 

Closing with That’s What Love Will Make You Do you have swirling organ, both rhythm and punchy lead guitar pressing forth; occasionally gritty, but other times strictly R&B fashioned, and always honest as Pittman and the band bid their respective farewells.
So, there you have it … another exceptional Blues drenched R&B album from the rather fabulous Shawn Pittman … go buy it ASAP.

 Review by Our man from Havana; Maurice Hope
https://www.shawnpittman.com/
Released 14th March 2025

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