Shawn James

Initially based in Chicago and later in Arkansas, Shawn James develops a songwriting style at the crossroads of folk, blues, soul and a rock sometimes tinged with gospel. Trained in choir singing from a young age and with a background in sound engineering, Shawn James recorded his first solo tracks in the early 2010s in a stripped-down aesthetic focused on voice and guitar, before exploring a more electric sound with his band The Shapeshifters. The first full-length album, “Shadows” (2012), established the foundations of a dark, introspective universe, followed by “The Gospel According to Shawn James & The Shapeshifters” (2014), which emphasized the blues-rock dimension, and “On the Shoulders of Giants” (2016), rooted in a more cinematic strand of American folk. His song “Through the Valley,” reinterpreted in the trailer for the video game The Last of Us Part II, significantly broadened the reach of his repertoire and introduced Shawn James to an international audience. With “The Dark & The Light” (2019) and “A Place in the Unknown” (2022), the singer-songwriter alternates between acoustic ballads, heavier tracks and vocal sections close to spiritual singing, while continuing to tour regularly across the United States and Europe, where his blend of dark folk, rural blues and gritty soul keeps evolving with each recording.