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Category: Sharon McMahan

Time has dictated a need to be self-reliant. I have great examples to draw on like those provided by people like Ollie McLaughlin, Johnnie Mae Matthews and Don Davis, from back in my Detroit days. That steady hum of music coming from Detroit was heard all over the world and I was fortunate to be a part of it. All of us who were there could feel that it was a special time for music like no other. I am pleased to have this opportunity to fully express my talents for all to hear and more importantly, to enjoy!

  • Sharon Shares 

    Sharon Shares 

    Extracts From My Book – The Last Note Book By Sharon McMahan

    I Have No Choice

    Detroit was fully engaged as a music town. It housed some of the greatest jazz musician in the word.
    It is a known fact that most of all the so-called Funk Brothers who were used by Berry Gordy at Motown, originally were jazz musicians and played at Bakers Keyboard Lounge and other jazz venues in Detroit.

    My Aunt Brent who live upstairs, had learned to play the piano, as a young girl. She taught me a couple of songs when I started out writing. They had a piano upstairs too. There was the sounds of pianos upstairs and downstairs. We could hear each other whenever we played songs. Sometimes we would play something and answer each other whenever we played a song. For instance, I would play the left-hand part of a song and Cindy would would answer me with the right-hand. They had a younger brother too, my cousin Paul but he didn’t play.

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  • Sharon Shares 

    Sharon Shares 

    Extracts From My Book – The Last Note Book By Sharon McMahan

    A Budding Songwriter
    As I was growing up, I Started to take notice of the songs coming from the radio. One day when I came home from school, I was listening to the radio and one of the songs I liked came on. It was called Mother-in-law by Ernie K. Doe. I was twelve years old. I remember sitting at the piano and really talking time to concentrate on the beat and how the singing came in.
    The more I listened, I began to think to myself that I should be able to copy that beat on to the piano. I started out by finding the note in bas and I began to play it with the left hand, to the beat. After playing the bass for a few bars, I tried to find the cord that would match with the right hand.Once I had both the bass and the chord, I started playing them back and forth like a drum and I was able to get the rhythm going as I played along with the song on the radio.

    After the song was over, I sat there and thought about what I had just done. I was very surprised. I asked myself, “what just happened” ? After thinking about it for a minute or two, I concluded that I should be able to make up my own songs.

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  • Sharon McMahan 

    Sharon McMahan 

    Sharon Shares

    Sharon was born in Sevierville, Tennessee but raised and musically disciplined in Detroit, Michigan.

    Sharon began her career, as a teen in Detroit, Michigan. She wrote her first songs at the age of 12. After auditioning her, Ollie McLaughlin launched her writing career by publishing and producing and releasing several of her songs on his own record lables, KAREN, CARLA, MOIRA & RUTH Records. McLaughlin recorded Sharons songs on major artists, Barbara Lewis, Deon Jackson, Gracie Darnell and Johnnie Mae Matthews. He also secured a UK release for Sharon’s song, Someday We’re Gonna Love Again, recorded by the London based group, The Searchers. It charted to #11 in Billboard, in several countries and to #23 here in the United States, in 1964/65. Thus, Sharon has a tremendous fan base in the UK and Western Europe.

    SHARON MCMAHAN SONGWRITER / ARTIST / PUBLISHER / PRODUCER

    Later, another Detroit based publisher/producer became familiar with Sharons writing skills. He was Don Davis, producer of Johnnie Taylor, executive producer of The Dramatics and many more artists. He recorded Sharons songs on current Hall of Fame artists, Etta James and Mavis Staples. He was also responsible for Sharons song to be recorded and released on The Three Degrees.

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