Shannon Wurst goes solo, confessional

March 5th, 2010 at 10:17 am

Shannon Wurst

Shannon Wurst knows she had a good thing going in 3 Penny Acre.

Their sound was pure, fun and, as she says, representative of the Ozarks.

But she also knows her dream: to be a solo artist. So the Alma native, who has also had brief careers as a whitewater rafting guide and a dog musher, is going it alone.

On the heels of her amicable departure for the Northwest Arkansas folk band, Wurst will release her second solo album, “What’s More Honest Than A Song?” at a show tonight (March 5) at the Smoke & Barrel Tavern in Fayetteville.

Wurst will also use tonight’s show as the starting point for a tour that will take her to the West Coast, East Coast and everywhere in between. Her tour is with a group titled the Swamp Family Band, composed of a group of songwriters who will take turns backing each other’s songs while on the road.

Wurst classifies her sophomore effort as a more honest effort in than her first album, 2007′s “Sunday Pie,” in that she wrote most of the songs featured on the new album.

It’s also a green effort — all of the album packaging is made from recyclable material and Wurst has even included a few flower seeds to plant for everyone who buys the record.

Tonight’s show is expected to begin about 10 p.m.

Before you go, take a listen to a couple of Wurst’s new tracks. The first is a reworked version of a 3 Penny Acre track that supplies the album title, “White Walls,” about a friend’s recovery from alcoholism.

The second is the song “Ivory Bill,” which Wurst wrote for the Arkansas Heritage Commission and performed at schools across the state.

“White Walls”:

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“Ivory Bill”:

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