With nine albums to his credit and collaborations featuring such musical luminaries as multi-platinum pianist George Winston, Shad Weathersby set off in a new direction. Having joined a nature and family-oriented organization called The Indian Guides with his wife and son, Shad began writing songs to sing around the campfire at their gatherings. The songs were well received, entertaining not only the children but their parents as well, and their tribe became known as “the music tribe”. Shad continued writing these songs and began to see a new type of album emerge – the direction of the songs “reached a tipping point” – and he followed this direction into the world of family music.

The result of that first batch of songs was the Parents’ Choice and Disney iParenting Award-winning Chomp Chomp album (2004), music that Weathersby calls “fun music mixing humor, fantasy and educational information”. With the warm reception of Chomp Chomp, Weathersby was off and running down this new path. He enjoyed helping kids visit the fun, innocent worlds that his music opened to them, and he enjoyed helping their parents to re-visit these worlds, to shrug off the pressures of adult life and experience pure joy and fun for awhile.

His second outing was a collaboration with acclaimed children’s author/singer-songwriter Mike Artell and resulted in the album Calling All Children To The Mardi Gras (2007), again winning a Parents’ Choice Award. The music celebrates the well-known holiday that is such an important part of the culture in Shad’s native Louisiana.

Shad’s sense of fun and his sense that he’d never fully left his childhood behind led directly to the concept for his third album of family music. Halloween at the Weathersby home is an immersion experience! Shad would spare no effort or expense to transform the house’s yard and carport into a haunted house of horrors! His longtime love for the holiday led him to write a song about it, “The Halloween”, and that naturally led to more songs in the same vein. The music embodies the eeriness and chilly but fun spirit of Halloween. The Halloween (2009) is Shad Weathersby’s autumnal answer to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas – and, maintaining Shad’s clean sweep, a Parents’ Choice Award-winner!

In keeping with the holiday theme, Shad’s next offering was Coming To Christmas (2012). Comprised entirely of original songs, he created a completely unique Christmas music album. Conjuring the magic, wonder, and traditions of his own Christmases past, Weathersby focuses on the childlike anticipation of the season, singing that “the best yet is coming – the Christmas to be”. In a commercialized age, these lyrics capture the excitement and tranquil beauty of the holiday while still maintaining an interesting and engaging listening experience for children and adults alike. Needless to say, the album earned a fourth Parents’ Choice Award for Shad’s catalog.

Shad’s new album, Lucky #3, released in March 2014, celebrates the human endeavor from earliest cave paintings to the present with some Sci-Fi fun along the way. The heroes of this drama are the dreamers of the impossible and the inventors of ingenuity.

Lucky #3’s songs are an entry point for a deeper exploration of the scientific material that underlies them. Lesson plans have been prepared and are already being used in conjunction with the songs in school science classrooms. A Teacher’s Edition of the album is set for release in the near future providing access to pdf downloads of the 10 lesson plans.