DOWNLOADS

Salt Lake City’s Tara Shupe started playing mandolin at age four and took the stage of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival for the first time by age 16. Releasing her first solo indie-Americana album in spring 2018 Shupe set out to match the world class musicianship of her studio musicians locally, and Tara Shupe and the Ponies was formed. Heading up the band on guitar, mandolin, and lead vocals, Tara brought in her brother and life-long music collaborator Daron on banjo, Megan Nay, the 2018 Utah State Fiddle Champion with the voice of an angel, on fiddle, and long-time friend and former Puddle Mountain Rambler bandmate Matt Ligman on bass.

Shupe’s vision for the band is an exercise in creativity; a place where her songwriting can be manifest into a musical moment listeners carry forward. “The unique challenge of bringing a song to an audience as honestly as possible through any performance scenario is something that drives me,” Shupe says. “It’s hard, so it doesn’t always feel great, but I always want to try again.” And it shows in her triple threat octave mandolin, claw hammer banjo, and guitar solo shows and her high energy band performances, bringing an amalgamation of the bluegrass she grew up on to elements of folk, Country, rock, and old-time, creating a new flavor of Americana planted firmly in roots music, with subtle pop sensibility and a whole lot of soul.