Shaun's Bio

Born into a blue-collar mining family in Kingman, Arizona, Shaun DeGraff was not influenced by family members or friends to pursue music, yet somehow gravitated toward it. Inspired by soulful artists such as Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, Otis Redding, and Donny Hathaway, the piano became the obvious choice to express his musical desires. With a little begging and pleading, he received his first out-of-tune piano at age 13 and immediately fell in love with its faded glory.
Following his high-school graduation, Shaun was offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel abroad to Japan playing keyboards in a Funk/R&B band, but had no money for expensive professional gear. Wanting it wholeheartedly, Shaun lied to the band leader about owning a full rig, and was hired. Eventually, his plan was exposed, but was kept on the band as his talent and passion for music was too much to pass up. He was in. While touring with a dilapidated keyboard lent to him, he continued to extensively write his original music. The exposure in Japan allowed him to further his international travels through Europe, Asia and the Middle East, with this new band performing more and more of his original compositions. After the events of September 11th, he decided to perform on a USO tour for the American soldiers in Sarajevo and Bosnia.
Learning of his mother's sudden death in the states, he returned to America and put his career on hold, not writing or performing a single song for five years. In 2006, Shaun was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and was told he had ten years left to play the piano. That year, however, he used this unfortunate news as inspiration for recording his album In My Room on a used 8-track. His most difficult moments turned out to be some of his most successful, as his album, out of 36,000 international submissions, won the 'Best Modern Rock Album' award of 2007 by Just Plain Folks, the largest Indie music organization in the world.
Shaun followed this success with his 2008 album Music For Life, which won the exact same award that year. With a new fire and a ticking clock, Shaun began performing all over the West Coast and has been known to have played alongside the likes of Keller Williams, Xavier Rudd, The Eels, Regina Spektor, DJ Shadow, Ernie Halter, The Reverend Al Green, Sublime tribute-band Badfish, Chaka Khan, and the one-and-only Stevie Wonder. That same year, Shaun connected with his Native American heritage and was honored to receive an official tribal citizenship into the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma.
Recently signing with the newly formed Indie label JMD Records, Shaun is electrified, and upped the ante on his newly release album Grey Area released March 2010, and is looking forward to hitting the pavement once again this year performing material from all four albums at a concert venue near you.