Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Despite a recent move from Southern California to St. Louis, Sharon Hazel’s childhood obsession with skateboarding hasn’t receded at all. She might not be able to see Tony Hawk skating in drained swimming pools around her old neighborhood anymore, but she still rocks Vans and skates the four blocks from her home near Cherokee to work. Skating, she says, is a lifestyle she’s known “always, since I was a little dude.”
The other habit that she picked up as a kid was a love of the guitar. Around age 11, she started taking classes from local metalheads, “guys with really big hair who could rip.” After cutting her teeth on Metallica and Mötley Crüe, she delved into the intersection of rock and blues, studying Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. She then headed back to roots music and blues. All the while, she was building her own fusion-based playing style. After attending college in Chicago, she returned to San Diego, founding her own group, Sharon Hazel Township, and crafting original songs.
She uprooted the project in May 2015, when she moved here with her fiancée, Samantha Lembeck, a St. Louis–area native. New players were found; new gigs booked. Hazel says she “underestimated St. Louis. The music scene here is three times better than San Diego’s. The average musician here is very humble, very open. Musicians here are about their history and culture, and they’re proud of it. There’s a vast array of genres.”
And St. Louis, it seems, has been impressed with Hazel. Recently she won the International Blues Challenge’s Road to Memphis event as a solo artist, meaning that she’ll be appearing in Memphis as St. Louis’ representative in a major blues showcase. (Members of the St. Louis Blues Society, who sponsored the local leg of the Memphis competition, have been a steady source of support and inspiration for her.)
Hazel doesn’t consider herself purely a blues player, however, and admits tailoring her sound with “a lot more guitar work” to place herself in a blues environment. Whether playing solo or with Sharon Hazel Township, she aims for a “fusion jam band” feel, though not necessarily a Grateful Dead/Phish vibe. Instead, she brings reggae, folk—a little bit of everything, actually—into her set.
“I’m at the point of going along with this to the next level, which means I’m at a whole other level of learning,” she says. “I want to focus on getting to the festival level—opening for national acts, getting on some tours, and all that.” That calls for a lot of extra work, heaped atop 70-hour workweeks at two jobs. But, says Hazel, “It’s the problem I’ve been wanting to have.”
Local Acts that Hazel Admires
Marquise Knox: The St. Louis blues prodigy has huge potential for a national impact on the blues scene.
Tok: Another band born of a teenage project, Tok plays powerful riff-heavy rock—a mix of punch and songwriting that Hazel appreciates.
Aaron Kamm & The One Drops: The group neatly reflects Sharon Hazel Township’s own blend of blues, reggae, and improvisational flourishes.
