Craig Schuster

............................................................ ............................................................ ............................................................ ................. I was born in Warrensburg, MO on Halloween 1976, just a short 500 miles upstream from the birthplace of Rock and Roll: Memphis, TN. I’ve beat every piano I’ve come across since then like it owed me money (except for a short period of time between birth and age five when I was too short to reach the keys), and I’ve lit three of them on fire. I made my way down the Missouri river to St. Louis where I studied Music Theory and Composition at Webster University and eventually turned south to Memphis. The Bluff City was supposed to be a stop on the way to New Orleans but it’s been six years now and I haven’t left yet. I found a home here playing in piano bars and after a few years started up an original southern-rock/funk/jamband called Stout. We toured from Utah to Florida and from the Great Lakes down to Texas and I somehow still managed to find time to meet the love of my life. Stout’s run ended in October 2004 and since then I’ve been writing and recording my solo album: Fessin’ Up. Fessin’ Up is an admission of the influence that the New Orleans piano players have had on me, mainly Dr. John and Professor Longhair (but not excluding Art Neville, Tuts Washington, Allen Toussaint, Harry Connick, Jr., etc.). The title track tells the story lyrically of how I discovered this great style, and the album as a whole will tell the story musically.