ABOUT

Joseph Shipp was born in a darkroom somewhere in between Nashville and Memphis, along Hwy 100—just north of Grinder's Switch and east of Bucksnort. Shipp, the son of a second-generation photographer, is a Renaissance man of sorts, exploring an array of creative fields: a musician, of course; an award-winning graphic designer; an accidental archivist; and a photographer who grew up around his parents’ photography business.

Shipp’s musical influences were shaped early on by a heavy dose of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and the a capella hymnals heard at the local Church of Christ. Like many young kids of his generation inspired by Kurt Cobain, he started learning guitar at age 12. And at 18, he began writing songs. While living in San Francisco, he and his wife, also a musician and designer, became immersed in Old Time and Bluegrass music endemic to where he grew up. Shipp picked up the fiddle and his wife the banjo and for a few years performed traditional folk music as the duo The Family Shipp. 

After spending six formative years in northern California working in brand design and design strategy, he and his wife—and their dog Sadie—decided to move back to Nashville, where he currently lives, to start a family. Six years later, they are now raising their two sons.

Music careers usually don’t begin at age 40, but that’s what Shipp is doing when his debut album, Free, for a While, comes out this fall. “As I think about the album, I can’t help but think about where I was when I wrote all those songs: Alone and scared in an unfamiliar old house—a stranger in a familiar land,” Joseph Shipp says of his new album.

The 11-song album, co-produced with Grammy-nominated Andrew Sovine, with Shipp’s own brand of Americana, is a catharsis that wrestles with his feelings of coming home and becoming a dad and the isolation and fear that followed.  

Reflecting on the release of his debut album, Shipp ponders: “I hope I can provide a voice that can potentially bridge the worlds between rural and urban, old and new. You can’t have one without the other, and each provides value. And sometimes, the way forward is through looking back.”