{"id":626,"date":"2010-08-23T19:50:25","date_gmt":"2010-08-23T19:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shaunbelcher.com\/tstar\/?page_id=38"},"modified":"2010-08-23T19:50:25","modified_gmt":"2010-08-23T19:50:25","slug":"shaun-belcher","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/catalogue\/shaun-belcher\/","title":{"rendered":"SHAUN BELCHER"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/deux.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-531\" title=\"deux\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/deux.jpg?resize=384%2C512&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"384\" height=\"512\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shaunbelcher.com\/tstar\/?page_id=37\"><strong>SHAUN BELCHER : BLACK RIVER <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I am: Shaun Belcher (alter ego Trailer Star)<br \/>\nI am based: Nottingham, England<br \/>\nI started: Too long ago!<br \/>\nI am influenced by: John Fahey, Howlin Wolf, Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, Charlie Rich, Peter Case, Lucinda Williams, Vic Chesnutt, Bobbie Gentry, Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt\u2026<br \/>\nI can be heard: www.myspace.com\/trailerstarorchestra<\/p>\n<p>I aim: To raise funds for charity and to maybe be late and great too\u2026but not too soon!<\/p>\n<p>Born in a thunderstorm somewhere in the middle of the Thames Valley sometime before the \u201850s ended and the \u201860s started swinging \u2018Trailer Star\u2019 also known as the \u2018Legendary Thames Valley Cowboy\u2019 is a fictional character created by myself, Shaun Belcher, artist, poet and sometime musician.<br \/>\nFrom the mid-80s, when I painted record sleeves for Creation records and started obsessing over American songwriters like Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Peter Case and Bluesmen like Mississippi John Hurt and Lightning Hopkins, I have written songs\u2026literally thousands of them\u2026.<br \/>\nThese ended up on a series of cassette only releases with titles like \u2018Last Farmer of Rattledown Row\u2019 and \u2018Black River\u2019 from the mid-80s through to \u201890s. Finally a limited edition \u2018Floodplain Demos\u2019 CD was released in 2001, which is where the Trailer Star character first appeared. From 1999 until 2004 I edited and designed the online songwriting webzine \u2018Flyin\u2019 Shoes Review\u2019 named after the Townes Van Zandt album of the same name which concentrated on solo artists in the folk, Blues and Americana vein.<br \/>\nAfter a few years playing live in the early 1990s with The High Priests (a messy three piece garage Blues band like an early White Stripes) I realised that others would sing some of these songs better than me and after showing some artistes my archive of songs the charity CD \u2018Moon Over The Downs\u2018 resulted. Fifteen Americana (US and UK) acts created a tribute to the \u2019star that never was\u2019. These included Deanna Varagona of Lambchop, Jim Roll, Bob Cheevers, Terry Clarke and Ronny Elliott with interpretations that ranged across folk, Blues and country.<br \/>\nI had cut my fictional \u2018Trailer Star\u2019s\u2019 career abruptly short when his pick-up truck left a blind bend one frosty night on the downs near his trailer but I could not let the story end there and his ghost continues to play\u2026<br \/>\nTrailer Star lives in his \u2018late great\u2019 form and I continue to release his collected works on the internet through the official Trailer Star archives at various sites..<br \/>\nTrailer Star is also the fictional host from the \u2018Trailer Star Lounge\u2019 of an Americana podcast \u2018Flyinshoes Radio\u2019 which comes out roughly every two weeks and can be downloaded from itunes etc. Again like the webzine I concentrate on songwriting.<br \/>\nMaybe one day Trailer will feature in his own novel\/film but for now thanks for listening and please consider purchasing the \u2018Moon Over The Downs\u2019 tribute as all proceeds go to Cancer Research UK.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shaun Belcher a.k.a. Trailer Star<\/p>\n<p>out now\u2026Suit of Nettles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SHAUN BELCHER : BLACK RIVER I am: Shaun Belcher (alter ego Trailer Star) I am based: Nottingham, England I started: Too long ago! I am influenced by: John Fahey, Howlin Wolf, Tom&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":609,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-626","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7DCHF-a6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/626\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trailerstar.co.uk\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}