Shane Brodie is a professional guitarist, teacher and musical artist from the Green Mountains of Vermont. He performs popular, traditional and original songs and instrumentals from the jazz, blues and folk repertoire.
He studied classical syntax and structure at Bard College in New York State, and received a B.A. in Music Theory and History from Boston University in 1987.
He began strumming and singing at age 9 in 1966, and by age 15 began his professional career as a teacher and performer as a camp song leader, and later that year, in a square dance band playing lead and rhythm guitar. He studied and performed a wide variety of traditional material and became a preferred accompanist for competition fiddling. He can be heard accompanying contest winners on Green Mountain Records’ “Craftsbury Winners ’78” and on folksinger Dick McGrath’s album, “The Luckiest Man in the World,” on ECM Records ’78. He has been working consistently at teaching and performing ever since.
In the mid-70’s, he honed his performance and finger-picking skills by playing in coffee houses in Boston and New York. In 1979, he studied Jazz History with pianist/composer Mary Lou Williams at Duke University in North Carolina, and performed in her Jazz Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC. He also studied jazz guitar with Atilla Zoller in southern Vermont and with Tiny Grimes in Washington Heights, NYC.
He continues to perform in solo, duo and ensemble settings, and has worked and/or studied with Mike Gordon, Tiny Grimes, Atilla Zoller, Jorma Kaukonen, Mary Lou Williams, Steve Kaufman, Denny Breau, Bucky Pizzarelli and others. He performs his original blend of Americana on six-string flat-top, 12-string, and hollow-body electric guitars at clubs, colleges, festivals and private events. His current repertoire, drawn from jazz, blues and folk music, consists of compositions from antiquity to tin pan alley, standard and original songs, and instrumentals with flights of improvisation and a classical sensibility to form. His club shows are characterized by swinging country blues rhythms, flat picking and ragtime finger-picking, textured chord melodies and reed-like vocals. In recent years, he has concentrated on mastery of the modern jazz harmonies, and delights in creative juxtapositions of musical styles.
Shane enjoys the camaraderie of other musicians, and enjoys facilitating new collaborations, in one case leading to the collaboration of Mike Gordon with Leo Kottke on two albums.
Shane teaches privately, either on-line or in-person, at his own Uphill School of Music and Guitar Study (est. 1990), as well as at schools, camps, and town recreation and University continuing education programs.