Donald John Shinn (born 15 December 1945) is an English
keyboard player
A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instr ...
, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and vocalist. An influence on
prog rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Initi ...
and
jazz rock
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...
, he is known primarily as an organist and pianist, and also plays vibraphone.
Biography
He was born Donald John Walsh in
West Ham
West Ham is an area in East London, located east of Charing Cross in the west of the modern London Borough of Newham.
The area, which lies immediately to the north of the River Thames and east of the River Lea, was originally an ancien ...
, London, and when young was adopted by the Shinn family in
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
,
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
, where he grew up.
[Bruno Ceriotti and Martin Ruddock, "Departures and Return Trips", ''Shindig!'', no.99, January 2020, pp.46-49] He learned piano as a child, before joining the military and playing
clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
in an Army band. After returning to Southampton, he bought a Bird Duplex
organ and joined local band The Lonely Ones, becoming known for his habit of playing the organ pedals with bare feet.
[
After the band renamed themselves The Soul Agents, they recorded three singles for ]Pye Records
Pye Records was a British record label. Its best known artists were Lonnie Donegan (1956–1969), Petula Clark (1957–1971), the Searchers (1963–1967), the Kinks (1964–1971), Sandie Shaw (1964–1971), Status Quo (1968–1971) and Brotherhoo ...
, produced by Tony Hatch
Anthony Peter Hatch (born 30 June 1939) is an English composer for musical theatre and television. He is also a songwriter, pianist, arranger and producer.
Early life and early career
Hatch was born in Pinner, Middlesex. Encouraged by his mus ...
. Other band members were Johnny Keeping (vocals), Tony Good (guitar), Jim Sach (bass), and Roger Pope (drums). In 1964–65, the band were the regular backing group for singer Rod Stewart
Sir Roderick David Stewart (born 10 January 1945) is a British rock and pop singer and songwriter. Born and raised in London, he is of Scottish and English ancestry. With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart is among the best-selling ...
. After Keeping and Sach left, The Soul Agents continued as a trio of Shinn, Good and Pope, with Shinn upgrading to a Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...
. Shinn was hospitalised with tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
for several months in 1965, but after his recovery formed a new version of The Soul Agents with Pope, Dave Glover (bass) and Pete Hunt (vocals). Their final single, "A-Minor Explosion" / "Pits of Darkness", credited to Don Shinn & The Soul Agents, was released on the Polydor
Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...
label in 1966. Like the band's other releases, this was not a commercial success, but both sides are now seen as "a testament to his credentials as a pioneer of prog.... combining neo-classical flourishes with jazz licks and R&B raunch...".[ Shinn was particularly influential on ]Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson (2 November 1944 – 11 March 2016) was an English keyboardist, songwriter, and record producer. He played keyboards in a number of bands before finding his first commercial success with the Nice in the late 1960s. He became ...
, who adopted some of Shinn's onstage performance techniques such as jamming a screwdriver into the keyboard. Shinn also recorded with another Southampton band, The MeddyEvils.
The Soul Agents disbanded, and Shinn formed a new group, simply called Shinn, in early 1967, with Eddie Lamb (vocals), Paul Newton (bass – later of Uriah Heep), and Brian Davison (drums – later of The Nice
The Nice were an English progressive rock band active in the late 1960s. They blended rock, jazz and classical music and were keyboardist Keith Emerson's first commercially successful band.
The group was formed in 1967 by Emerson, Lee Jack ...
). However, the band split up after a few months, and Shinn joined The Echoes, backing Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (16 April 1939 – 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English singer. With her distinctive mezzo-soprano sound, she was a popular singer of blue-eyed soul, Pop music, p ...
. In late 1967, record producer
A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...
Denis Preston
Sidney Denis Preston (''né'' Prechner, 16 November 1916 – 21 October 1979) was a British record producer, recording studio owner, radio presenter and music critic. He was particularly influential in the British jazz and associated skiff ...
invited Shinn to record a solo album. The instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
album, initially titled ''Don Shinn... Takes a Trip'' but then retitled ''Temples With Prophets'' for release in the UK, was eventually issued by Columbia in early 1969. Shinn's second album, ''Departures'' was released later in 1969. Shinn also worked as a session musician
Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...
, playing organ, electric piano
An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...
and harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
on James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, havi ...
's debut album.[
In 1969, Shinn left The Echoes and co-founded the band Dada, with guitarist and arranger Pete Gage, and singers ]Elkie Brooks
Elkie Brooks (born Elaine Bookbinder; 25 February 1946) is an English rock, blues and jazz singer. She was a vocalist with the bands Dada and Vinegar Joe, and later became a solo artist. She gained her biggest success in the late 1970s and 1980 ...
and Paul Korda. Shinn wrote or co-wrote several of the tracks on their 1970 album, and, after they added singer Robert Palmer, Shinn toured the US with the band. After returning to the UK, Shinn left the band as it transformed itself into Vinegar Joe.[ He also worked with ]Kiki Dee
Pauline Matthews (born 6 March 1947), better known by her stage name Kiki Dee, is an English singer. Known for her blue-eyed soul vocals, she was the first female singer from the UK to sign with Motown's Tamla Records.
Dee is best known for h ...
, Engelbert Humperdinck, Stan Tracey
Stanley William Tracey (30 December 1926 – 6 December 2013) was a British jazz pianist and composer, whose most important influences were Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. Tracey's best known recording is the 1965 album ''Jazz Suite Inspir ...
, Persian vocalist Parvaneh Farid, and Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
. In the early 1970s, Shinn joined former Soul Agents bandmate Pete Hunt in the jazz rock band Iguana, but in 1974 left the British music business and moved to Norway.[
Shinn lived in Norway until the mid-1990s, and played in many local bands and with visiting musicians. He returned to Southampton in 1995, and continued to play with local bands as well as playing ]church organ
Carol Williams performing at the United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel.">West_Point_Cadet_Chapel.html" ;"title="United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel">United States Military Academy West Point Cadet Chapel.
...
s. His Columbia albums have been reissued on CD.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Shinn, Don
1945 births
English rock keyboardists
Living people
Musicians from Southampton
English composers
English rock singers
English jazz singers