Ravinia 2019, Issue 3, Week 6

Inception InSession Isaiah Sharkey embraces his inner artistic soul By A n dy A r gy r a k i s W What do neo-soul innovator D’Angelo, “Lady Marmalade” Patti LaBelle, guitar god John Mayer, “Shout” singer Ronald Isley, and gospel great Smokie Norful all have in common? Well, outside of being exceptional artists in their respective fields, they’ve all had the fingerprints of star session guitarist Isaiah Sharkey on their re- cent tours or albums (including a multiple Grammy winner) in the midst his steady ascent as an esteemed solo artist. “I started out with my first guitar at 3 or 4 years old,” explains the now 29-year- old Chicago native, whose local roots date back to a somewhat rough patch of Cabrini Green on a street that’s since been named after double Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Curtis Mayfield. “My dad and his brothers and sisters had a group back in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s called The Fugitives. They made albums, did shows and really inspired me whenever I [played] their cassette tapes that we had at home. My brothers and sisters are all also musicians and singers. I grew up in the church, and that really started my foundation, but my father was really open to all of us listening to different types of music. Jazz, rock, funk, blues— you name it, we were listening. So I started there and ventured off into jazz, started incorpo- rating it into the gospel music that I grew up listening to and playing in different choirs. People started to take a liking to it, I started getting hired by choirs and gospel artists outside of my church, and started to build a reputation for myself. “Simultaneously, I was also playing at the jazz club Velvet Lounge, owned by the [late,] great Fred Anderson, and he would allow me to sit in and do jams and some- times even be a feature,” Sharkey adds. “So I was getting all this information and exposure and started doing sessions at the age of 13 and 14, which led to [connecting with] bigger artists in the gospel industry and then even more sessions. One of the sessions got into hands of the great Ronald Isley. He heard my guitar playing, loved it, and asked me to go on the road with him. From there, it was a domino effect to D’Angelo and all the way up to now John Mayer, with a lot of other artists in between just giving me different experiences and allowing me to exercise what I grew up listening to.” As a result, Sharkey’s already come through Ravinia once before, when he played in Miss Patti’s band on a show shared with The Commodores in 2016, though this summer marks his proper venue debut as an artist on a July 6 bill of similar stature starring Michael Mc- Donald and Chaka Khan. “She’s a legend that’s sweet like a grandmother or an aunt, a beautiful woman who’s very talented with just a very warm spirit,” the onetime band member 10 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 1 – JULY 14, 2019