In a career spanning nearly 15 years, Michelle Shocked has traveled all over the musical map of America. Depending on which song or album you listen to, you can hear folk, blues, bluegrass, country, rock, punk, soul, swing or gospel in her music.
"I consider myself a true American musician," says Shocked, "and I play every style that is my heritage. The real goal I'm working toward is to do something to help integrate the African and European influences of American music."
Shocked, who will perform at the Mystic Theater June 20, has followed a difficult path in her pursuit of that goal - and of achieving her musical potential and artistic freedom.
A decade ago, she was a refreshing new voice on the folk music scene. She released three studio albums for Mercury Records -- Short, Sharp Shocked (1988), Captain Swing (1989) and Arkansas Traveler (1992) -- each one displaying a different style of her music.
Then she found herself at odds with her record label. Although under contract to record more albums for Mercury, the company refused to grant her studio time, citing her "stylistic inconsistency." What she soon learned was that Mercury wanted to re-do her contract so it would be in control of her master tapes, song royalties and release rights.
"I was told, "you cut too good a deal for yourself.' The deal was too good because I had complete creative freedom and control over my projects and furthermore I owned those rights. But I paid for owning those rights by not getting a big advance up front." When Shocked stood her ground, the label blocked her from recording for any label.
"They were going to keep me in creative limbo forever," she says, "and do everything to keep me on their label. That's when I had to sue them to change that situation." In her lawsuit, she cited the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery, and asked Mercury to release her from her contract and grant her full ownership of her songs and recordings.
In a landmark ruling, Shocked won her case and gained her freedom from the label. As part of the settlement, she agreed to let Mercury release a compilation album, Mercury Poise. But she also had to agree to let her earlier Mercury albums go out of print. That's why it's hard to find any of Shocked's CDs in record stores these days. Her subsequent CDs, Kind Hearted Woman, Artists Make Lousy Slaves and Good News, were released independently and sold primarily at her concerts. Eventually, Shocked may reissue her earlier albums.
Her next album, due out later this year, is called Deep Natural. On her current month-long U.S. tour, she is selling a preview version of the album, called Dub Natural, which emphasizes the rhythm of the songs rather than the lyrics. "The approach I took on Deep Natural is much truer to what a record should sound like," she says.
In a phone interview from her home in New Orleans, the 39-year-old Shocked says she's thoroughly enjoying playing live dates. "Oh man, playing live ... I love it," she enthuses. "Even back when I toured solo, performing was my favorite part. I like performing, writing and recording -- in that order."
For the last 10 years or so, Shocked has been performing off and on with a band that includes guitarist Fiachna O'Braonain of the Irish group Hothouse Flowers. "He and I go back to 1988 when we were label mates. We kind of had a mutual admiration society back then. In 1991 he recorded on a track of my Arkansas Traveler album. We had fun playing together." A couple of years later, O'Braonain and Hothouse Flowers band mate Peter O'Toole collaborated with Shocked on her Kind Hearted Woman album. "Fiachna comes from the Irish tradition that is soulful and mystic," Shocked says.
Her own music is steeped in "American roots," she says, and she is developing an "Afro-centric" aspect to her sound. "I don't want to just borrow from the surface. I want to be the embodiment of it. I think American musicians are selling themselves short if they limit themselves to one genre."
Shocked's life has been anything but normal. Born Michelle Johnston in East Texas, she was raised by her mother and stepfather, a career Army man, in a Mormon household. At 16, she ran away from home and went to live with her father, a mandolin player, in Dallas. He exposed her to folk, blues and bluegrass and encouraged her to pursue her music.
After briefly attending the University of Texas in the early 1980s, she moved to San Francisco, where she became involved with the punk music scene and the squatters' movement. She was arrested during a fair-housing protest at the Democratic National Convention in 1984. A black-and-white photo of her being hauled away by police officers appeared in the San Francisco Examiner and later on the cover of her first Mercury album, Short Sharp Shocked.
While in the Bay Area, she was picked up again by police and admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She then returned to Dallas to live with her father, but after a few months her mother had her placed in a mental hospital and forced to undergo shock therapy. After being released, she changed her last name from Johnston to Shocked.
She lived in New York and Amsterdam before returning to Texas in 1986. While at the famed Kerrville Folk Festival, producer Pete Lawrence heard her perform and was so impressed he recorded her on a Sony Walkman. A bootleg album of that recording was released in England in 1987 as The Texas Campfire Tapes and reached No. 1 on the independent charts.
In 1988 she signed with Mercury Records and released Short Sharp Shocked. The album received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. Captain Swing and Arkansas Traveler followed before she became embroiled in her dispute with the record label.
Married since 1992, Shocked says she's matured as she's gotten older. "I've done it the right way. There are ways of maturing older, not wiser. I've matured in a way to accept mistakes and transform the mistakes I've made. My life now is very, very meaningful. I would ask nothing more from any artist that I respected and admired than to give me a template and an inspiration. And I think I've achieved that."
(Published June 13, 2001.)
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