COURTESY OF SHAWN PITTMAN

Pittman’s gotta play

Bluesman's artistic handiwork
will be on display at the Wave Waikiki

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By Shawn 'Speedy' Lopes
slopes@starbulletin.com

'Every now and then, I think about trying to quit or doing something else, and I just can't," reveals hot-fingered guitarist Shawn Pittman, one of the few true ascending stars of the blues genre. "For some reason, this kind of music is necessary for me. I can't quite explain it. I just have to do it." As a devoted student of the blues, Pittman has spent half his life absorbing the music and sharing his greatest passion with audiences around the world.

The 28-year-old bluesman's emotive handiwork will be on display tomorrow night at Wave Waikiki.

As he tells it, a teenage Pittman was introduced to the soul-searing sounds of John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf and Lightning Hopkins through an Oklahoma community radio station's weekend blues program. "Once I got into one, it made me get into the others, and it just had kind of a domino effect; I just started trying to find all the blues music I could find," he says by phone from his Austin, Texas home. "It was more personal and meaningful than all the other kinds of music that were on the radio."

During his senior year in high school, Pittman moved in with relatives in Dallas in an effort to get closer to that city's vibrant blues scene. It wasn't long before Pittman renounced his favorite grunge bands in favor of blues giants of ages past. "I liked Nirvana," he remembers with a laugh. "I listened to Pearl Jam, too, but once I got into the blues, I didn't listen to much else. As far as I was concerned, anything outside of Jimmy Reed or Albert King was not even worth checking out."

Feeling out of step with his formal musical education (he was enrolled in the Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts for a bit), Pittman began gigging about town, honing his already advanced chops alongside some of Dallas' more seasoned, road-savvy musicians. Before long, Pittman's vital, expressive sound began to emerge.

"Anyone who caught me playing would probably hear Lightnin' Hopkins and Buddy Guy more than anybody, but no matter who I try to play like, it's going to sound like me anyway because no one can really sound like them," he says. "It's kind of like a fingerprint; everybody has their own style. I've developed my own way of playing through trying to learn other people's styles."

Pittman's combustive collaborations gave rise to several albums, including "Burnin'" in 1997 and 1998's "Something's Gotta Give." His latest, "Full Circle," is a star-studded affair that furthers the dynamic guitar slinger's reputation as a world-class bluesman.

In 1999, Pittman relocated to Austin and immediately fell in with the city's vast, unbounded musical culture. "There are so many musicians here that are great," he says. "It inspires me more than anything. You don't make much money here because there's so many others doing the same thing, but the best way to learn is to play with the best."

Over the years, Pittman has joined forces with a number of famed musicians of the electric Texas blues, including Preston Hubbard, of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon, of Double Trouble, Stevie Ray Vaughan's formidable backing rhythm section. His current traveling band includes bassist Pierre Pellegrine, a French expatriate and blues authority living in Austin, and rhythm master Jason Moeller ("one of my best friends and favorite drummers"), who, like Pittman, moved from Dallas to the working musician's paradise that is the state's capital.

"I can make enough to pay my rent and bills and food here," he says, "but I've learned that when times get tough, you just keep playing. Work gets scarce, you just keep playing. You just take the bad with the good and just keep going. There's no way I'll ever stop playing. I'll be doing this for the rest of my life."

Shawn Pittman and Killer Instinct with opening band Third Degree Where: Wave Waikiki, 1877 Kalakaua Ave. When: 8 p.m. tomorrow Tickets: $20 advance, $22 day of the show and $18 for Hawaii Blues Society members -- available at the club, Hungry Ear in Kailua, Tower Records on Keeaumoku and Kahala, all Cheapo Music locations or by calling 590-2332 Call: 941-0424

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