Shantu Selene @ Club Romantica 02/05/2023

One of the happy coincidences I've enjoyed more than once in SL is being at a show and IMing about what shows are coming up and deciding where to go, only to find out the show I want next is at the very venue I'm dancing in. This is exactly what happened to me at the Some T Jup show at Club Romantica this afternoon. The artist I was interested in was Shantu Selene, another of the multi-instrumentalists who lay down their own backing tracks and play live over them. Shantu is also an accomplished song writer and today's show featured several of his compositions, each one a gem of lyrics and melody.

As he introduced the first song out of the gate, my interest piqued. As my reader(s) know(s), in my past I've been a huge Elton John fan, so anytime someone sings Elton in SL, I pay particular attention. As Shantu started this set, I immediately noticed this was not the "Your Song" of my youth. This version had a definite tropical bent to it and fit well with the beaches around the marble colonnade at Club Romantica. Getting over my initial "wtf?" response I settled into a delightfully original version of this classic hit.

The next song, an original, should make him Famous already. It’s called "This Love" a toe tapping tune which includes the line "Share with you, everything I am". He slid effortlessly into James Taylor's "Long Ago And Far Away", continuing to hold my interest, no mean feat when covering this particular artist.

Then it was back to another fantastic original, "Champagne Eyes". Shantu's smooth vocals floated Travis Tritt's "Best Of Intentions" across the spacious Romantica dance floor. When he opened with "The Dance" from country legend Garth Brooks, I could almost feel couples leaning tighter together. After this "moment" for everyone in attendance, Shantu delivered three more originals, "It Takes A Lot Of Heart", his debut of "Moonlight Heart" and the exceedingly poignant "A Love As Beautiful As You". Each of these demonstrated his mastering of the craft of song writing and well worth a listen.

As Shantu shared, it’s not really a show without an Elvis tune, and tonight's show ended with a rocking version of "Don't Be Cruel". Thus ended a thoroughly delightful hour of entertainment. I genuinely hope you’ll find your way to a Shantu show soon and be impressed as I was.

Shantu Selene (rl Danny Bowman) was flirting with music long before he picked up his first guitar. His mother favored country artists, but Shantu couldn't stop singing Elvis tunes. Even as a child he was arranging, singing into a vacuum cleaner hose to create reverb.

Adding the guitar and forming a band at 14 was logical progression of this relationship with music for Shantu. He dated around a bit, playing with many bands throughout high school. He learned from each experience, but always found himself coming back to the songs he'd grown up with.

Through college and military service, his guitar was his best friend and confidant, always by his side. He finally accepted that music was much more than a casual affair for him. It was in his soul, and his guitar was the conduit of its expression.

His engagement came when he joined the award-winning band Windjam as lead guitarist and began writing original songs for the band to perform. Windjam captivated audiences across the U.S. for ten years before the members parted amicably. Shantu took his guitar to California and delighted fans with his solo performances, and continued to experiment with words, music and arrangements. He left L.A. in 2000, opened his studio near Chicago and made the first recordings of songs that had been playing in his head for so many years. Bringing this marriage of poetic lyrics, romantic guitar and his hypnotic voice to Second Life gives Shantu a way to share the joy, sorrow, passion and love that is in his heart with his listeners. And he still loves to sing Elvis.