Shawn McDonald in UNOmaha Department of Music

Shawn McDonald

The most unique sound that reaches the ear upon listening to “Roots” isn’t the sinewy, snaking interplay of percussion and bass, or the empyrean voices wafting through the ether. Nor is it the watery, warbling guitars, skewed tinkling of toy piano, drowsily yawning horns or reedy wheezes of accordion, though those rich sonic textures definitely aren’t the makings of just any old song. The rarest sound is that of an artist and a truly wise man describing the soil in which he’s grounded his soul through the changing seasons. Oh, men like these, they are just like trees planted near streams of water… That artist and wise man is Shawn Mc...