High Horse

Wild Onion is chock-full of memorable moments and water tight song-craft.

Shawn Hess is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist hailing from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Currently residing in Laramie, you can find him behind the bar of one of the college town’s best known dives, The Roughed Up Duck.

If, by chance, you show up around 8:30 on a random Wednesday night, you might catch him playing a solo set; he has three albums worth of material and will throw in a smattering of covers ranging from Jerry Jeff Walker’s “I‘m Just an Old Chunk of Coal(But I’m Gonna Be a Diamond Someday” to TLC’s 90s classic, “Waterfalls”. If the stars and planets are aligned and you are able to catch him with his backing band, you are in for quite a treat.

He is a member of the Wyoming supergroup 10 Cent Stranger and is largely responsible for cultivating a flourishing music scene in the state. He had a stake in the legendary house venue once called The Salmon Palace where many up and coming Americana artists have played and stayed. He is one of the hardest working musicians I’ve met and so there is all the more reason to celebrate an album that really captures that essence; the songs and his band of virtuoso players.

Wild Onion is a risky album for a singer-songwriter who has every right to stay in his comfort zone and keep churning out the hits with a tried and true formula. His risks ultimately pay off in what is by far his most rewarding album. It is not a complete departure from a familiar sound that the singer has been cultivating for almost a decade (maybe longer) but he shows us some new colors he may not have been confident to use until now.

Songs like “Harvest Me” and “Tear For You” give us a taste of the multitudes that are contained within the singer. Not only these two standouts, but really the whole album shows an artist thats really hitting his stride and gaining momentum. The album plays like a snowball rolling down a hill, becoming more and more powerful and clever from one song to the next. A strong showing for the artist’s third full length LP.

“Harvest Me” sounds like something from a Grisman / Garcia record. Kevin Hegyi’s guitar parts solidify this notion as he arpeggiates up and down the fretboard. He knows exactly what he’s doing. The backing vocals are also a nice touch.

“You’re Not The One” is hot right out of the gate and Shawn really sells the first line. This song is a lesson in compression in the way the old legends did it. It is a dense little silver bullet of a song, containing all of the tricks of an Everly Brothers song. And the lyrics are a punch straight to to the gut.

Most of the songs are short and compact, clocking in at under three minutes long. Some of the songs have been heard at his performances for quite some time (“Yesterday’s Coffee”, “Time, Only Time”) and some are hot off the press. Wild Onion clocks in at almost thirty one minutes in length. The amount of memorable lines and memorable moments Shawn and his band deliver in the span of half an hour is quite a remarkable feat.

One of Shawn’s strengths as a musician and songwriter is that he knows what he’s good at and he usually just stays in that lane. On Wild Onion, you can hear that he is experimenting with some new tools. He seems to be taking more risks than he might have in the past. This is all to be expected with an artist who has road tested his songs to hundreds of audiences around the country and is realizing his power. His control and command of his voice is strong and the strength of the songs are becoming undeniable. The voice is distinctly Shawn’s but you can hear him pushing it to new heights and demonstrably carving out new territory. 

“There’s No Walls Where I Go When I Pray” is the magnum opus of the album and something that the songwriter should be extremely proud of. It is something as special as a family heirloom; a song that is timeless and should be cherished and shared with the next generation of songsmiths.

Anyone who has played with Shawn or has spent a considerable amount of time with the artist will know that he is a music historian and avid record collector. He is a student of the history of country music and beyond. His encyclopedic knowledge and experience give him the raw materials that an artist needs for their craft; and his band really take it home.

Here’s a version of “When You Call” recorded by Western AF a few years back.

*The band is Hunter Hicks on bass, Jackson Clarendon on fiddle, Kevin Hegyi on lead guitar, and Cooper Dickerson on the pedal steel. This star-studded cast have played together for quite a while in different configurations. I was lucky enough to play with these fellas; we would come to be known as “The Country Skillet” for a few summers and, boy, did we rip it up.

by Evan O’Neal