Local Singer-Songwriter Marc Lee Shannon To Release New Album on October 4

Semi-regular jam sessions with brothers Dean Anshutz (Red Wanting Blue) and Kurt Anshutz (Easton Union) and guitarist Michael Weber Jr. (The Michael Weber Show) at the Jenks Building in Cuyahoga Falls have proven to be particularly fruitful for singer-songwriter Marc Lee Shannon, a veteran local musician who played in Michael Stanley’s Resonators for 25 years. Shannon and Co. have just recorded their first album together, My Other Brothers , a terrific roots rock record with a strong Midwestern feel to it.

The album arrives on Friday, Oct. 4.

“It just started as a fluke,” says Shannon via phone when asked about the band’s origins. “I do this gig on the third Thursday of every month at the Jenks Building, which is an art mercantile music place. It’s really cool. At Christmas time one year, Kurt said his brother Dean was available. A chemistry happened that night. Through most of 2023, we got him whenever we could for those gigs. Michael Weber is amazing on guitar and an old-school Northeast Ohio guitar player. He’s a gun. [Singer-songwriter] John Hiatt once said that some records lend themselves to some players, and that’s what this is. They took my music and made it their own. I would love to say that this record is about me, but it’s not. It’s really a band record.”

Last September, the group began rehearsing for an album and recorded from late November 2023 through the spring of this year with Ryan Humbert from the local old school country group the Shootouts doing preproduction and tracking production supervision and local producer Jim Stewart behind the faders for tracking and mixing engineering.

A few special guests appear on the release. Tiffany Turner sings additional background tracks, which her husband, Nashville’s Lee Turner, from Darius Rucker's band, recorded in his 2Twenty2 Studio. Shannon and author and songwriter Holly Gleason, a former Clevelander who's become a renowned author, wrote the opening track together, and “Like a Mirror” features a J.D. Eicher lyric to the music

The single “Riser,” a Warren Zevon-like rocker that starts with distorted guitars before giving way to hushed vocals, is a cover of a Travis Meadows song that Shannon first heard by way of a friend.

“The guy who wrote the song does not have a version of it on record, but it’s been covered by Dierks Bentley,” says Shannon, who is a state-certified recovery coach who works in treatment centers and hospitals. “Dierks did a fine job, but it’s that traditional Nashville sound. Travis had a really rough life. When I found the song on YouTube, it made me stop and fully listen. I call that pull-over-to-the-side-of-the-road songs. When I heard it, I knew I wanted to do it. I wanted to make it more aggressive and do it Cleveland-style. This song just sent me to my knees. It spoke to me. It’s about getting up after you fall down. That’s a universal message for all of us. It’s grit.”

Shannon wrote the mid-tempo “Last First Kiss,” another album highlight that reveals Shannon's sharp pop sensibilities, for his new wife, Kimina, and for ”all who have let go and given up on hope."

The simmering “Bobby Ray” was written originally one night as part of a unique program that honors veterans. Shannon was paired with the real Bobby Ray and, after a three-hour interview, was tasked to write and perform an original song for the serviceman the next day.

“Bobby Ray was a proud black man who had been sent home after his year in combat and given meds to cope with the PTSD,” says Shannon. “That began a long road of suffering from the trauma, his substance use and the lack of concern stateside for his life after hell.”

The group plays a release show on Friday, Oct. 4, at the Rialto Theatre in Kenmore. The show will be limited to only 80 seats.

Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed