About

A PA guy through and through, Dave Shepherd is a country and bluegrass songwriter and musician from the rust belt of southwest Pennsylvania. After a decade living in Philadelphia touring the east coast, mid-atlantic, and southeast with various bluegrass, country, and jazz groups, Dave has resettled back home in the Golden Triangle, the Paris of Appalachia– Pittsburgh PA. You can hear the rust in his songs. Not plain alt-country– Dave has credentials in real deal country and bluegrass scenes– but Rust Country, classic songs with a grungy edge built on the rusty frame of that good old country, bluegrass and western swing. Original music that feels like home and the skills to get a room two-stepping all night long, Dave puts on a raw and well oiled musical show in any formation– solo acoustic, trio, bluegrass ensemble, to a full country outfit with fiddle and steel. 

Dave’s first two releases, Be Here Now and Yellowstone are products of his first session of original music. Recorded in February 2020 with Mark Thornton in his studio in Nashville, Tennessee, they were released a year later in 2021. There’s also an EP of Hank Williams covers and the most recent release Strugglin has been out since 2022. Strugglin was recorded in Pittsburgh with Tyler Thompson (Fruition/Studio 110) and features Pittsburgh’s own Read Connolly (Zach Bryan, Charles Wesley Godwin) on pedal steel.

When Dave’s not playing his own shows, fly fishing or spending time with his fiance Clio, he’s probably playing a gig with his bluegrass band Slag Mountain, his jazz band Penna Players, or with the Pittsburgh Squares square dance.

Shepherd has shared the stage with: Town Mountain, Jesse Daniel, Local Honeys, Olivia Ellen Lloyd, Hannah Juanita, Twisted Pine, TK and the Holy Know Nothings, Dougie Poole, Steel Wheels, Summer Dean, Zach Bryson, Tim Bolo, Angela Autumn, Tommy Goodroad, David Quinn, Sam Morrow, and many more.