Shelley Short

by Jason Ankeny Alt-country chanteuse Shelley Short was born and raised in Portland, OR. According to Bob Mehr's profile in the February 3 edition of the Chicago Reader, she was introduced to a vast range music via her record-collector father, and after a stint playing trombone in her middle school band she played bass in a punk duo dubbed Bogadoy. While still in high school, Short grew infatuated with vintage country and honky tonk, and taught herself guitar while attending the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Invited to play a local open mic night, she wrote her first original songs in 2001 and became a fixture of the Portland club scene, performing as a solo act as well as in the Americana acts the Dying Ember and Nervous & the Kid. In 2002, Short self-released a CD-R titled Your Story Has Touched My Heart. In 2004, the Tucson-based Keep Recordings issued the follow-up, Oh Say Little Dogies Why?, an impressively atmospheric interpretation of postmodern roots music. Later that same year she relocated from Portland to Chicago, assembling a new band comprising bassist Andy Rader, violinist Tiffany Kowalski, and drummer Jamie Carter. The acclaimed Captain Wild Horse (Rides the Heart of Tomorrow) followed on Hush Records in early 2006.