Watch the Suffolk musician who's taking America by storm

Speaking just before going on he laughed: “Don’t ever play jet-lagged, it’s like performing with a hangover.” Consummate professional that he is, no-one would have ever known. He had the crowds in the Spa Gardens singing along to a medley of Beatles classics, Don Maclean’s American Pie as well as a number of self-penned songs (Travelling Man, Restless Celtic Heart and the evocative Ride the Mississippi) from his American Odyssey album.

This year has been particularly busy. He finished recording a new album in the spring which was penned during lockdown and just returned from his regular summer jaunt across north America where he combines gigs and road trips with collaborative writing sessions.

As a result of friendships developed over the past eight years, he is about to launch a duet tour of Suffolk libraries and small venues with American musician Scott Stilwell who he first met in Nashville in 2014.

The pair have written together on a regular basis ever since working over Zoom in-between Tony’s annual visits. Scott was responsible for introducing Tony to the talented people inside the Nashville writers' circle – those faceless folk who help keep the country music scene alive in an increasingly competitive industry.

“Scott and the other musicians I have met are just the nicest people. They will do anything for you. In the beginning I was very intimidated because I was playing alongside people who had written number one singles for some of the top country stars, but they were just very grounded and just wanted you to pick up your guitar and play. When you came up with a good line or a good hook they would give an appreciative nod or just as often an ‘angry’ shake of the head which translated as ‘I wish I had thought of that’.

“It’s a very collaborative world – very different from the world in which I was brought up where, as a songwriter, I wrote the words and the lyrics or maybe just shared the writing with just one other person. In Nashville you are in a room with a group of other writers and musicians with a piano and guitars. Someone comes up with a phrase or a line, someone else either refines that or expands it, someone else comes up with a bridge or a middle eight, or just the idea for one. Someone then adds something else or offers a better word, a stronger word, or a great turn of phrase, and the song is constructed by everyone. Everyone is credited so no-one is precious about whose song it is.”

Tony first met Scott Stilwell at a gig in Nashville while promoting his first album Songs From The Last Chance Saloon. “I was just coming off stage and Scott walked up to me and said: ‘Hey guy, love your stuff. A group of us are getting together at the Nashville Songwriters Association building, do you want in on it?' My gut reaction was ‘Hell no. I would be way out of my depth.’ But, I had promised myself when I arrived that I would embrace every opportunity, so I blithely said: ‘Yeah, tell me where you need me to be.’

“I am so glad he made that first approach, and I reacted in the way that I did because years later we are still friends and still work together. He put on a gig for me in Iowa on my 2015 tour of the States and we wrote together then, and every year I have gone back he’s put on a gig for me and we have always written.

“He came to visit in 2019 and I put on a gig for him in Ipswich which he loved. And now we are planning to do a whole tour.”

Tony said playing with Scott immediately conjures up that informal Nashville vibe which is hard to replicate in the UK. “In Nashville you get these gigs where you have three or four musicians performing in the round. Each person will do a song and you may change your song because of what someone has played, so it’s very loose and informal, but it keeps you on your toes.

“The other thing that the 2019 gig highlighted was how differently we can treat the same song. We both played some songs that we had written together and we had recorded separately for our respective albums and they were arranged completely differently. So, I can’t wait to play those songs on our forthcoming tour – one night Scott will do his version and the next I’ll do mine. Same song, same sentiment but sounding completely different.”

The Sounds of Nashville tour is Tony’s way of repaying Scott’s hospitality in the US and a way of giving him a look at Suffolk beyond Ipswich. Once the gigs are over Tony will give his friend a whistlestop tour of the UK taking in the highlights of the heritage tourist trail.

Music has always been Tony’s life. He’s been a familiar face on the Ipswich music scene for many years. He’s organised open mic and singer-songwriter nights in local pubs, played with Beatles cover band Star Club as well as fronting his own Tony Shevlin Band.

In the mid-1980s he moved from a tiny bedsit in Southwark, with views of Waterloo Bridge, to the hustle and bustle of glamorous New York City and formed his breakout band Shev and The Brakes – all big hair and shoulder pads – and landed a recording deal with Columbia Records. This was the big time.

It’s a time he still remembers fondly. “We were mixing an English songwriting ethic with a US rock band sound. Going against the prevailing winds of the current crop of synth bands in the UK charts, we wanted an edgier sound, The band on the recordings were made up of members of Elvis Costello's Attractions and Graham Parker's Rumour.

“It was an amazing time working with these great musicians, recording in a top-class studio. I learned so much about the craft of songwriting and music production from producer Colin Fairley (Elvis Costello, The Bluebells and The Fabulous Thunderbirds)”. Regulars who would drop by the studio included Nick Lowe and Colin Vearncombe of Black.

At the time everything was rosy. Then Columbia was sold – the new owners wanted to slim down the number of artists under contract and suddenly Shev was out in the cold and the band was no more.

"It was such a shame; I think we made a cracking album. I would have liked the public to have heard it and made their own minds up."

Tony returned to London and carried on gigging and recording. At one stage he shared studio space with Jools Holland’s then vocalist Sam Brown as she recorded her hit debut album Stop. Her brother Pete did some engineering and guitar work on a couple of Tony’s tracks at the time.

Along the way he also made a film about one of his heroes, Geno Washington, as part of a documentary season promoted by Anglia Television and Eastern Screen.

However, real life stepped in and burst the showbiz bubble. “By this time there was a baby on the way, so I went back to the bars and clubs to make a living. I did write some very miserable songs around that time. I'm sure if Leonard Cohen had heard them, he would have told me to cheer up.”

Fortunately, life improved quite quickly and Tony managed to earn a living from music both as a writer and a gigging musician.

He’s written songs for bands as diverse as REM and The Troggs and his song, Cut Me, was nominated as the Amnesty International Anthem of Peace, and has been performed worldwide by umpteen different artists.

He’s also lectured at Suffolk New College, helping to inspire a new generation of musicians and nurture young talent.

But, it’s the interest from the United States that has helped Tony’s career reignite over the last 10 years. American country music stations and music fans started picking up on his 2015 album Songs From The Last Chance Saloon – an album of songs written over a 30 year period that Tony felt had stood the test of time.

“I wasn’t embarrassed by them – in fact I was quite proud that they had stood up so well.” Songwriting had always been important to him but since he started visiting Nashville and the US it became something he was keen to push and develop further.

As a result Tony wanted to promote the album in the US, and while he was there wanted to fulfil one of his life’s ambitions drive along the legendary Route 66 – right across the central belt of the USA.

This tour of America’s back roads in turn provided material for the 2017 album American Odyssey which was all about the freedom of life on the road and having the freedom to take a chance.

“American Odyssey was a huge gamble – sending me off to play America on a three-month tour. The record company who put out Last Chance Saloon said 'we’re getting a lot of foot-fall from the States, lots of sales and downloads, we think you should go out there and try and sell it some more'.

“So we went to all the local independent radio stations that were playing the album and asked them to recommend somewhere to play. The first place we approached was a club called Reggie’s in Chicago and said: ‘Tony’s coming to the US, would you like him to play at your venue?’ and their response was: ‘Great when can he come?’ And that was the response all over.

“When we had done all the suggestions from the radio stations then it was pretty much looking at the map and going: ‘We’ve got Chicago and Kanas City, what’s in-between? St Louis - okay let’s book something there.”

Out on the road, Tony found that songs came naturally to him as he was driving. “Every town that’s name-checked on the album I have actually been to. I had a portable voice recorder in the car which I used to compose and sing into while I was driving. I also found once I got back home and started to arrange the songs that virtually all the songs I composed on the road were in the key of D because I was clearly influenced by the background sound of the car wheels running on the tarmac.”

Although this was a huge three-month tour, it wasn’t a big operation with tour buses and trucks full lighting and staging.

“I arrived with just the clothes on my back and suitcase. That was it. I hired a car and spent an entire day buying a new guitar when I got in. It was a Martin acoustic and spent the first week just playing and jamming with my friends in Nashville, finding the sweet spots, getting the feel of it before heading out on my great adventure.

“I made a decision very early on that I was doing this trip alone. It really was just going to be me, a car and a guitar because it would force me to meet people, speak to people and actually see the country. If you have someone with you, it is so easy to sit back and let them do the talking or decide on the route. If this was going to be an American Odyssey, it was going to be my American Odyssey.”

He said that he had always been bewitched by the names of iconic US towns and cities immortalised in classic American songs – places like Kanas City, Phoenix and Amarillo – now he has been there as well as recording in the legendary Sun Studios (which gave Elvis, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis their start) and has sung on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry.

Now, Tony can introduce his friend Scott Stilwell to the beauty of the East Anglian landscape – the wonderful vintage castles and historic towns of Suffolk, the tranquillity of the Norfolk Broads and the untamed nature of the East Anglian coast before venturing up into the Lake District and visiting historic London.

The Sounds of Nashville tour with Tony James Shevlin and Scott Stilwell opens at Lowestoft Library on September 23, before moving onto Stowmarket Library on October 1, Gainsborough Library, Ipswich on October 7 before finishing at St Mary’s Church, Glemsford on October 8. Tickets can be booked at the Suffolk Libraries website.