This is the story of Shovin' Sunshine. Three musicians, Wade Summerlin, Jeremy Slotin, and Billy Shaw got together to experiment with new forms of jazz and the Avant Garde. Wade and Jeremy had been playing together in a punk rock group when Billy came back East after releasing his debut avant garde album called "Sassy". Through an initial miscommunication, the three musicians ended up in the same room and began jamming. What started as somewhat of an accidental experiment ended up becoming "Shovin' Sunshine"; the very first 'Death Jazz' group ever... even though at the time, the genre had not been named. In fact, the genre of "Death Jazz" was named after the first Shovin' Sunshine release. At the time, the trio hesitantly considered themselves to be some kind of offshoot of acid jazz, but the term didn't feel comfortable and the band wasn't convinced that it accurately described what Shovin' Sunshine was all about.

The technical approach to the production of music was not particularly groundbreaking; the group was after clear, un-distorted representation of fairly conventional instrumentation: Jeremy on drums, Wade on electric, fretted, four-string bass, and Billy on tenor sax. The approach to the creation of the music was what set this trio apart; Billy usually charted out melodies and arrangements in advance, he never shared the direction with the rest of the band. Fortunately, everyone seemed to feel the same vibes at pretty much the same time, and reasonably tight arrangements emerged from basically extemporaneous improvisations, all of which was taped. In fact, every time the band ever played the music was committed to tape.

Regrettably (and we really do mean this in the most profound sense of the word), the band's time together was fleeting. During that time though, a number of live gigs were performed, and many hours of tape were accumulated. The group dispersed to their respective musical paths. Wade formed the progressive / art-rock band Cobweb Strange. Jeremy began recording and touring the USA with the band Moonwater followed by USA and European tours with the shock rock group; The Impotent Sea Snakes. Billy moved to Florida where as it were, he ended up in music school where he continued to pursue his form of avant audio (and later chucked it all to return to Bluegrass and what became Contemporary Mountain and Prairie and a series of acoustic pseudo-country music compositions that began to characterize his music publicly as anything but avant garde jazz).

After more than a decade, Wade and Billy reconnected and discussed the possibility of releasing some of their previously unreleased work. Billy had continued to evaluate, arrange, and master the raw tapes. Several semi-official re-releases made their way out of the archives and into the hands of a few long-time fans before Shovin' Sunshine receded back into the shadows for more than a decade.

However, articles continued to creep up about the band over the years and, surprisingly, despite becoming more and more difficult to acquire, sales of the bands' initial two releases continued show up. Both Wade and Billy, unbeknownst to each other, were aware of the continued interest in their former project and kept a watchful eye on the mummers and rumblings. An article in the London-based newspaper, The Guardian, about a Death Jazz festival which specifically mentioned Shovin' Sunshine as the innovator of the genre caught them both by surprise. Speaking of surprises, it turned out they were not alone in occasional searches for new Shovin' Sunshine news. Wade was contacted in 2022 by an investor who believes that now is the perfect time to re-introduce their music to the public. The band is excited to announce that a remastered, 30th Anniversary Vinal release of Death Jazz is in currently in production. The mastering was done by Chris Griffin whos credits are far to volumous to list but include The Swans, Madonna, Drivin' & Cryin', The Villians, Eric Clapton, and ABBA among many, many others.

Not only were the songs re-mastered, but new material from the original recording sessions will also be included for the first time ever. Plus, although there have been random uploads of Shovin' Sunshine songs here and there over the years, 2023 marks the first official, widespread digital release of the band's first album: Death Jazz! That's right, you can go to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or wherever you stream music, and find the debut Shovin' Sunshine release available FOR FREE to stream right now! Fans of records will be able to purchase the remastered 30th anniversary Death Jazz record on vinyl later this year. We have also been working to prepare additional unreleased songs from Fire A Go Go, sort through two entire recording sessions that were not previously released, and find the best live performances from the band's original shows.

We're pretty excited about this and we think that you will be too when you hear the amazing quality of the remasters! To all of our friends and fans who have kept the music alive over the last few decades, we would like to sincerely thank you!

MP3 Downloads: To listen to the first track off of the new release Live at the Liquid Bean - '93 , click on the song Floater and hear Shovin' Sunshine Live! Enjoy...

To listen to the first track from the original studio release Fire-A-Go-Go click on the song Wade Man Rag and hear one of our favorite Shovin' Sunshine performances - Wade Summerlin on that bad bass (in fact, he wrote the song)!