Musical Background of Sharon Gannon

Washington DC 1951
I was born and lived my early childhood in Washington DC. Music has always been an enormous part of my life. My mother was a very accomplished musician, a child prodigy trained in classical piano and opera. She had very eclectic musical tastes, and could sing jazz and popular songs as well Butterfly’s part from Puccini’s famous opera. She taught my brother, sister and myself how to appreciate all genres of music, so as a child living in the Washington DC area, we listened to lots of different types of music. When I was in grade school my mom sang in jazz clubs. During summer evenings we would often go together to hear the Washington DC Opera Company perform on a barge, which was docked on the Potomac River.  At home during the 1950-60s we didn’t watch much TV, because it was more exciting to listen to my mother sing or the records that she would bring home to share with us.
My singing debut was in 1961 at the 4400 Club in Wildwood New Jersey. I was 10 years old and I sang “Goodnight to Naples” with the Frankie Brent quintet, having learned it from listening to the 45rpm over and over. My mom was dating Frankie at the time. I remember receiving an electrical shock as I came on stage, and touched the strings of Frankie’s electric guitar.
As a child, besides my mother, my biggest musical inspiration at home was my younger brother, Marty who really excelled as a musician. I was enthralled with his talent. He played guitar, harmonica and sang folk/blues/reggae/funk style. He had perfect pitch and was able to play and sing a song just by hearing it once. He was also a charismatic performer and was in many bands while he lived in Seattle before he died of AIDS at 37.

Seattle, Washington 1967
I lived in Seattle Washington during the 1970’s and sang in a poetry/art band called the New Fauvist Revue. From 1979-1987 I was the vocalist and violinist in Audio Letter, an improvisational art band. We performed regularly in Seattle venues and produced cassette tapes of our music, which we distributed throughout the US, Canada and Europe under the imprint of City-zens for a Non-Linear Future, attracting a cult-following among various random intellectuals mostly residing in NYC, London and Prague. Also during 1980-82,  I played drums as well as occasional violin in the punk band, Pyche-Run.

New York City 1983
In 1983 Audio Letter traveled to NYC for two weeks to play many shows, afterwards, the guitarist, Sue Ann Harkey and I decided to stay in NYC. We joined the ranks of the Downtown New Music Scene when we moved into an apartment on the Lower East side of NYC where other musician friends of ours also lived, notably, John Zorn and Elliot Sharpe. The Seattle members of our band returned to Seattle and were shortly replaced by New Yorkers: Don Cherry, Denis Charles and David Life. Besides owning the Life Café, which provided a venue for musicians in the lower east side during the 1980’s, David Life was an accomplished painter/sculptor, who also built musical instruments which he would play in the band audio letter. Don Cherry was at that time a highly revered innovative jazz musician who had played with many renowned musicians including John Coltrane. Don studied Indian and African music and originally coined the term “world music.” Denis had always been a sought after jazz drummer since his debut at the legendary NY 5-Spot Club when he was 15 years old. He was somewhat older than that by the time he started to play with us.   In 1987 we recorded Not This Not This on vinyl.

New York City 2003
In 2003 I produced a remix version of it entitled: Neti Neti, which featured remixes by: Bill Laswell, dj Chebi Sabbah, Reverend Run, Russell Simmons, Sean Dinsmore, Roderick Romero and Jeff Greinke and Mike D. A very favorable ¾ page article appeared in Billboard Magazine about the CD. “Exotic Rhythms, otherworldly soundscapes, and flawless musicianship make for an album that manages to challenge, yet irresistibly pulls the listener into its orbit.”  -Tom Demolan, Billboard
Here is a summary of the tracks on Neti Neti: (“Sound Is God”) where Gannon scats Sanskrit in a duet with Legendary Rapper, Reverend Run to jazz-inflected meditations (“Neti-Neti”) to rock-tinged psychedelia (“Smoke and Mirrors”) add a dose of environmental activism from John Robbins and the breadth of contributors reflects an inspiring eclectic mix. Seamlessly, acclaimed producers such as the Beastie Boys’ Mike D and Def Jam impresario Russell Simmons weave a diverse tapestry with the help of DJ Cheb i Sabbah, Run-DMC’s Reverend Run, Sky Cries Mary leader, Roderick Romero, Sean Dinsmore, and the Latch Brothers.

I had practiced Yoga and meditation before moving to NYC. Even though I had relocated to New York to further my musical interests, within a couple of years of being in NYC I began to spend more time teaching Yoga and less time playing music. The demands I put on myself to be able to practice and teach yoga and manage a yoga school took most of my time. With the partnership of David Life we developed a yoga style, which we called Jivamukti Yoga and it incorporated an emphasis on music. Nada Yoga—the development of a sound body and sound mind through deep listening became one of the five tenets of Jivamukti Yoga. Infused within our yoga classes was recorded inspiring music as well as chanting mantras.

In 2002 David Life and I published a book of yoga asana photographs by acclaimed photographer, Martin Brading, titled, The Art of Yoga. In the introduction we state that music is the first art. Everything—all that is manifest proceeds from sound. The aim of hatha yoga is to realize sound as the source of creation.  We felt such a profound link between music and yoga and were very honored that maestro Ravi Shankar and his celebrated musician daughter, Anoushka offered to write a foreward for our book.

 “I am a worshiper of nada yoga, which incorporates music in the attainment of yoga. There are two principal nadas: anahata and ahata. Anahata nada is the cosmic unstruck sound heard by great yogis when they are blessed with the highest enlightenment and mukti. The ahata nada or struck sound, is the search for divinity and godliness through music.”—Ravi Shankar from the foreward to The Art of Yoga.

Even though teaching yoga took most of my time, I never gave up music all together—everyday I sang Sanskrit mantras, accompanying myself on harmonium—every once in a while a friend would ask me to add some vocals to a song they were producing In the past few years (1990-2010) I have Collaborated with Mike D for a track on Bill Laswell’s Asana II release, and performed as a featured vocalist with Sean Dinsmore’s Dum Dum Project and contributed backing vocals to Wynn Paris, Shyam Das and David Newman's CD releases as well as produced an all female vocal album for White Swan Records, Jai Ma. But my main focus in regards to music from 1984 -2009 has been on hosting and promoting musicians and creating play lists for yoga classes.

Woodstock, NY 2007
One summer day august 2007 an extraordinary man knocked on the door of my house, where I live with David Life and seven cats in Woodstock New York, and asked me if I wanted to make an album with him. The extraordinary man was Parisian producer/composer/musician Ferenz Kallos. The next day, I rode my bicycle to where he has a recording studio set up in the forest about a mile up the road from me, we started working on music there, Sharanam is the result.