The Back Forty in Austin, Texas is where it all began. “Awl-right, let’s hear what ya got?” bellowed the beer joint’s bartender. Shawn had been playing guitar for all of six months and he walked into the former landmark (now home to a downtown parking garage) to see if he could get himself a gig. Nelson took a seat next to the weathered bar keep squeezing her whiskey glass, propped his guitar up on his knee, and cranked out his first song. Nelson played a popular cover song he thought would get the attention of the loyal patrons throwing back their beer and whiskey in the sunlit-dive. When he finished the tune, the bar-owner motioned casually with her drink to play another. This time, he played one of his own. When he finished this time around, she put her whiskey down on the table and said, “I liked that one better.”

Since that defining moment some ten years ago, Shawn has followed his calling as a singer/songwriter, steadily writing and performing for a mixed bag of devoted audiences. His music has threads of country, blues and rock. And his philosophy is simple – write lyrics with intent and back them with solid melodies.

After attending the University of Texas in Austin, Nelson moved to Nashville and worked for a music publishing company, but found that playing music was more important to him than promoting it. So after a year of living in a one room basement in Nashville, Shawn got himself back to Austin. Soon he formed his first band, Frontage Road, with long-time friend, John Saba of San Saba County. Shawn left Frontage Road when John started law school and started his second band, Crazy Chester. The Chester had a good run for a couple of years and the band produced an album called “To Here From There” in 2003, but the band parted ways shortly afterwards.

In early 2004, Shawn teamed up with the Ramblers and in the early days of rehearsing in their South Austin garage and playing weekly shows at the rowdy South Congress beer-joint, Trophy’s, the band really came together quickly. Coming from various musical backgrounds and from different parts of the country, each member brought something unique to the band and that collective force grew into a sound that had its own flavor. As the echoes of blues, rock and country are heard from show to show, the band consistently creates an original, yet familiar sound with well-crafted songs, high harmonies and groove laden melodies.

Beyond playing weekly shows in Austin, the band has been on tour as far west as Colorado and as far east as Mississippi. They have played some good shows at some well-know venues like Antone’s in Austin, The Continental Club in Houston, Poor David’s Pub in Dallas and Chelsea’s in Baton Rouge. And like the bands of yesteryear that made it the old fashioned way, by playing, they are no strangers to the stages of back-alley bars, roadside honky-tonks, and southern-fried juke-joints. For them, each show is special in its own way and performing is the most important thing to Shawn and the band.

In November of 2004, Nelson and the Ramblers released a self-titled album which has been well-received for a truly independent release and has been ranked on various on-line Music Charts within the Americana and Roots-Rock genres, like the Music Chart on MP3 Tunes where it was one of the Top 10 albums within the Americana genre for many of the spring and summer months of 2005. The first release represents the band’s beginnings and though new songs have been written and performed since its release, a good number of the tunes have evolved into favorites for the band and their fans.

For their next and latest release, the band decided to record a June 24th, 2005 performance at the legendary, Antone’s in Austin. The honesty and the raw nature of capturing one single night of their music on a Friday night in June appeals most to the band and makes the record special for their fans as well. Inviting other musicians to play with them is a SNR tradition, so it only made sense for Jessie England to join the boys on stage for a few numbers on fiddle and her presence truly adds a different dimension to the recording. The band also decided to release some of the covers that were played that night like Leadbelly’s “How Long”, Bob Dylan’s “Walkin’ Down The Line” and the traditional tune “Down By The Riverside”.

Shawn and the boys will be ramblin’ about the Southwest and Southeast in support of the “Live From Antone’s” release and will continue to play anywhere and everywhere for anyone and everyone.