Ep. 60: John Shanks

Our guest is a Grammy winning and six-time nominated songwriter, producer and guitarist. He has produced and/or written 45 #1 singles, 91 #1 albums and 60 million records sold to date in the genres of Rock, Pop and Country music. He has won a Grammy for Producer of the Year. And to those in the industry, his work is considered the gold standard. He started playing guitar in high school and performing with his band around LA. His incredible talent on guitar was the source of his first break, when he was asked to become Teena Marie’s tour guitarist at the age of seventeen. But songwriting was never far away, and he was soon writing jingles and themes for commercials and movies of the week, even as his guitar skills remained in high demand for demos and session work. A meeting with Melissa proved to be the next turning point in his career. After briefly playing guitar in her band, he left to concentrate on his own writing and production. Since then he has worked artists such as Alanis Morissette, Melissa Etheridge, The Corrs, Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban, Santana, Michelle Branch, Fleetwood Mac, Miley Cyrus, Bon Jovi, Celine Dion, Annie Lennox and numerous others. And The Writer Is...John Shanks! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.