Shea Keck, born in Jeffersonville, Indiana of mixed blood Cherokee/ Scotch-Irish heritage, grew up in Knoxville, Tenn.  singing and performing in her church choir. Shea started singing at age twelve performing throughout the southern United States with gospel group Heaven’s Harmony. Shea’s soaring vocals and electric stage presence mirrors her background in both gospel and blues.

Recently Shea has performed at The Gathering of Nations on Native American Activist and Rapper Litefoot’s stage and with NAMA artist of the year Keith Secola at the Native American Music Awards show in Hollywood, FL which gave audiences a glimpse of her amazing talents as a vocalist and showman. She was also invited to perform with Mr. Secola at The Grassroots Festival in Ithaca, NY to promote arts education and A.I.D.S awareness.  Currently attending Lee University, Shea is now pursuing a degree in counseling.

Recording artist, Shea Keck, defines herself as a work in progress.  Born in Indiana, her life began as a wheel within a wheel.  To find work, her family transitioned from one small town to another in Tennessee.  Shea says,

 “My mother was extremely young so my grandmother basically raised me…I was passed from hand to hand with everyone in my family, but my grandmother had the biggest hand in that.  Later in years my mother became addicted to drugs and in and out of abusive relationships and so I really learned how to be strong for my younger siblings.”

Shea says for her being strong meant relying upon her faith early on.

 “God has been… Basically with me from the beginning if you ask my grandmother.  She will always say, “When she was three this happened…. And when she was five this happened.  And she always has a story about how God was with me from the beginning and so I was definitely grounded in my Christianity and my relationship with God. We moved around a whole lot…mostly in Tennessee…I think I lived in every county in Tennessee (chuckle) definitely.”

 She says moving from county to county had its challenges… Yeah, we moved around a lot due to work or my grandmother couldn’t always afford to have me with her so I lived with my aunts…I lived in Brisville Tennessee…I lived in Clinton Tennessee…I lived in Washburn Tennessee…I lived in every little bitty hick town and country town you can think of—I’ve lived there…and believe me I was probably the only “brown kid” there (laughing), so I can definitely relate to racism and all that type of stuff that we as being of a different culture and heritage go through.”

And being of a different culture and heritage wasn’t the only thing that stigmatized her early life… her mother’s troubled past would continually be the refining tool that would bring her to grips with her own personal identity.

“When you grow up hearing certain things and seeing certain things, that both plays a role in how you turn out…so probably a little bit of both.”

Dysfunctionality became a part of the day to day for Shea.

“I knew what drugs where in my home…they were a big part…You know music and drugs those were the two things that I understood completely.  I understood the addiction that my mother had, so the older that I got the clearer it became as to how strong that addiction was for her…and then the abuse that came along.”

In order to keep her mind off of the daily turmoil of her household, Shea says she began focusing more on the music she heard around the house.  She says,

“Drugs and music were the only two things that I understood.  Music for my family was an escape…so that was a time for my family that brought us together as a family because we were so dysfunctional, the music was what brought us together….and so growing up was all music.”

But also during her mother’s down times, Shea found herself being the parent in the family.

 “The roles were definitely switched in our family…my mother was manic-depressive and so she spent a lot of time in the bed and I did a lot of the laundry…I did a lot of the cleaning the house and things that usually most parents do… And I didn’t understand it as a teenager, I hated to be the dishwasher… and the housekeeper…and the laundry lady…so at that time I was angry about it…and rebellious about it, I didn’t want to do it but I had a younger brother who looked up to me a lot for strength and for support and for care and so that was just the role that was dealt to me.”

Although Shea says for her the most difficult part of growing up wasn’t the cooking and cleaning…it was being a child desperately in need of her mother.  But she says, not all of her childhood memories are painful ones…there were moments that still bring a smile to her face.

“Oh my gosh…music…music was what really brought a smile to my face.  … I remember sitting out on the front porch steps of my house once with my mother and my mother was just picking the guitar, and she was singing old songs, and just the feeling that came over me when she would sing that song, as I described to you before…it is just a feeling that just comes from the soul…that was when she was in her darkest place and you could just feel her depression come through, and I would just remember sitting and crying listening to her pick the music and then flip the script, after she got clean, and of course, she’d go through bouts, all addicts go through bouts with up and down times, you know, but, I remember after she got saved, going to church with her and listening to her singing gospel music, and I just remember saying, “That’s what I want to do.” 

But there were times she says when even music didn’t ease the pain of living with an addict.

“I had bitterness, and for a long time I was angry and resentful and you know you…there is always a point in your life where you want to throw the blame on somebody else… and it’s your fault I’m like this.  And it’s your fault that I went through that. But it was then that I started to question my own relationship with God, and my really understanding God and His compassion, that He has for me, I began to be more compassionate for her and what she had been through and the anger just melted away and it was, you know, love, and oh my gosh, I can’t believe that somebody came through something like that.”

Shea says this compassion has not only affected her outlook…but has also been the driving force behind her educational goals to help others as well.

I’m a Bible student right now, at Lee University, and study psychology.  Through the studying of psychology you can also understand where addiction comes from and how it can affect you, and what it actually stems from…that has prompted me to help young teenage girls before it affects them later in life.”

Shea says for her what’s most important is reaching girls early and instilling in them a sense of self-confidence…self-worth…strength…community and love.

“I want to change someone else’s life for the better I want all the Native girls out there to know that they are beautiful…that they have great self-worth and that God loves them and they were created and designed for a specific purpose.  And so as not to ever loose focus of that and to draw strength from that and from your relationship to the Creator.  “Be strong…stay strong…don’t listen to the negativity.  People are always going to judge you…. Leave that on their shoulders…Don’t take that with you…don’t listen to somebody say, “you can’t do this, or you will never amount to that.”  That’s a big burden to pick up…just leave that with them…just watch it drop to the ground and die.  Have self respect…have self dignity…don’t fall into a labeled category.”

She says having been that young teenager, wishing that somebody would have done this for her…makes her able to relate to the struggles many Native girls are facing today.

But understanding her painful past isn’t the only focus Shea has.  She says the true joy of her life comes from the inspiration she receives from singing and song writing.

Most of my inspiration comes from God and my relationship with Him.  There is no greater love song, than the love that Christ has for us, and so that’s the number one inspiration. Other inspiration, of course, my son, is a beautiful inspiration, past relationships…good…bad…the ugly…all of it.  I get a lot of my inspiration from things that I’ve been through in my life and having come through that and now when I write a song, it’s from past experiences and then for future experiences that I want to see myself in…you know the relationships…the type of relationships I want to have and the type of person I want to be.”

Although Shea says her relationships have not always been healthy or normal…she knows now what it is to have true love and what qualities to look for in finding it for herself.

“You know that is not a true love, when man can beat a woman to a bloody pulp…that is not, you know, men love your wives as Christ loved the church…That is not a display of that!  So it was only through my relationship…my own personal relationship with God and the reading of His word that I came to the understanding of that, that I realized that God had definitely more in store for me than, an abusive husband or a verbally abusive spouse that’s where I found the real meaning of love and relationship and how a man is suppose to love a woman and visa versa.”

Shea says she also understood her own issues with unresolved anger which led her into some of the bad life decisions she made. She says now her love songs are written for a true and lasting love relationship.

“That perfect one…that one that I was created for, you know, I have no clue who it is (chuckle)…but in his timing and God’s timing, He’ll put it all together.  That’s definitely not something that I’m focused on right now…music is what I’m focused on and putting my best foot forward in that.  And when I sing about love songs, it’s definitely about that person I was created to have that match with.  That person that will understand me…who will support me in my music and understand my calling I’m created to do.”

And for Shea the qualities of her perfect mate would have to be…she says,

First and foremost, he has to love God. He as to put God first in everything that he does. After that, it’s basically compatibility... the things that we have in common… understanding…definitely, the understanding that comes with…”You have a calling” “You have a Divine purpose as to why you are here and what you are called to do.” And that respect in that you have to support that person in what that person was designed to do. So that’s definitely the perfect man for me.  It’s the heart, the spirit of that person…the soul of that person and the compassion and the understanding and the respect, and that’s the… perfect man.”

While Shea says she is looking forward to love someday …for right now, she is pouring all her heart and soul into writing and recording her first CD.  By blending her Cherokee roots…life experiences…hopes…and desires, her signature sound becomes one “soulful” melody.

“ I was born Cherokee…I will die a Cherokee woman and I know who I am as a Cherokee woman, it’s very important to know who we are and know where we came from and know our culture and heritage.  And those of course are the things that ground me.  I know the roles of a Cherokee woman and what is expected of a Cherokee woman as taught by my adopted mother, Shirley Oswald, who has taught me about values as a Cherokee woman and our heritage and our culture.  And then my Christian heritage grounds me.”

As far as the here and now she says… “I definitely don’t think it’s about the hear and now. I think you bring who you are grounded and rooted to the hear and now…and then you educate with the hear and now.  You use what you have available to you at the hear and now to educate.  So definitely it’s all a collaboration…you never forget who you are and where you came from and what your roots are and you bring that.”

And this for Shea means being a part of changing the perceptions the world has about Native peoples.

“Letting the hear and now…the new world…letting people understand that… Native Americans are not just a legend and a myth shooting their bows and their arrows.  We do live in the hear and now…we don’t live in the Tee Pees anymore.  But we still remember those, because that’s apart of who we are…a part of our ancestors.  And without our ancestors, then we couldn’t be who we are. And so never forgetting who we are we bring all of that to the hear and now and educate and change things for our people.  Change things and open doors for our people that have never been open before.”

Shea says for her being Cherokee is a blending of her Native traditions and her Christian belief system.

 “If you look back at our heritage as Cherokee people you will see that from the beginning…we had only one Creator…and when we would pray we would only pray to the One Creator, and all Native people’s call Him the Creator, so, of course, within each tribe there is a type of religion.  …For the Cherokee people we only have one Creator and we give thanks to Him.  And our culture follows so closely with Christianity that it was very easy for us to adapt when the settlers came and when the Europeans came—because it follows so closely. I can’t speak for all the other Natives but I can speak for me…those are one in the same two things that I will always be.  A Christian and a Native woman.”

Shea says she wants her classic style to stand for something and be around forever.  When asked what one word describes who she is…she says,

“I definitely know who I am.  I definitely know which direction I’m headed…where I want to be…where I want to go.  To sum it all up grounded…that’s the word…grounded.  I know who I am in Christ and I know who I am as a Cherokee woman.  Grounded would have to be it.”