We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christine Winburn & Dylan James Shaw a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Christine & Dylan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

MamaSon’s most meaningful project has been the lifelong and joyous leap into the world of professional musicianship. It all began with a Go-Go Dancer/Singer/Disney Corp. grandmother named “The Gypsy Dreamer.” She instilled a dreamer’s childlike fantasy of entertainment into Mama (Christine Winburn) as a young child, where there were no boundaries to reaching for the stars. She moved to NYC, got an apartment in Spanish Harlem and began to realize Christine’s successes in commercials, movie soundtracks, Broadway, Off Broadway, etc. That same vision of music and entertainment exemplified Christine Winburn’s life later on, with unmatched and wild accomplishments such as performing at Madison Square Garden, Sesame Street, CBS and FOX tv. Her 3-part tv episode story has even contributed to an Emmy Award. Well, here comes Son (Dylan James Shaw) into the multi-generational entertainment lineage in 2007. Dylan James was born with photographic memory and perfect musical pitch, which gifted him with the ability to identify any musical tone of the world precisely without a reference note. He was born with another gift as well, being high functioning Autistic, that has helped demonstrate his natural virtuosity. Both Jan and Christine Winburn recognized this at an early age and began to nurture Dylan James’ musical talent, with the blissful dreams of hope once again. Dylan James continued to win national competitions & scholarships to collegiate events and celebrity mentorships such as Chuck Leavell (Rolling Stones), Steve Jordan (Rolling Stones), Morris Hayes (Prince), Dr. JB Dyas (Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz – UCLA) and Dave Limina (Berklee College of Music – Piano Chairperson). He has also been featured on national CBS and FOX tv and worldwide broadcasts. The list goes on and on with the three musical dreamers. But, the most poignant meaning behind everything has been to create highs in life that outweigh the lows, to dream the biggest dreams and capture the stars through music; to offset the hardship of Spanish Harlem with magical Broadway performances and limousine rides; to inspire and nurture an innocent special needs musical genius that he can create beauty in his world and everyone else’s world through his music. This is the true meaning of our lifelong project.

Christine & Dylan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

MamaSon is a dream team made up of Mama (Christine Winburn) and Son (Dylan James Shaw). Literally, we dream all the time about our next musical adventure, be it a celebrity mentorship, a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music, a Broadway show booking, even a new song idea that tells a story of hope. The mountain is never too high for us to strategize and conquer musically through artistry and artist management. We are most proud of living by example that anyone can accomplish dreams. We got to this place by hard work, every day practice, abandoning rules and leaping right in, creating opportunities that did not exist, reaching out to the top people in the industry, being curious about all people and their stories, allowing human connection to grow and help gain deeper entrenchment into our musical lives, being visionaries with a bird’s eye view.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is a loaded question. Who can pinpoint one specific honor, when there are so many? Changing the world’s perspectives, enhancing someone’s life with connection to a song lyric, feeling the peace within that music is your home to always rely on, the spiritual aspect of reaching a higher place in the universe, the honor of musicianship and how it gives to the world, the vibrations we create between each other, the actual tones we create that amplify and re-enact nature, even the potentially burdensome sensitivity that runs so deep in us creatives is an honor.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Being a creative is much more than a full time job – it’s a way of life. A professional musician is in the recording studio, creating music videos, promoting their music on digital service providers, booking shows, obtaining brand partnerships and media coverage, all while maintaining creative space to actually write music. Society can best support creatives by attending shows, buying merchandise, downloading tunes and creating playlists, share the music, subscribe to artist platforms such as Patreon for direct contribution. If a corporation or even an individual has the means to help an artists, do it! Donate to organizations like The Jazz Foundation of America and MusicCares that help musicians with emergency funding. Donate an instrument to your local Boys & Girls Club or donate to NotesForNotes.org to allow the underrepresented youth to have healing, musical resources. Sing a song and brighten the world!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://christinewinburn.com/ AND https://www.reverbnation.com/dylanjames6
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/dylanjamesshawmusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christine.winburn/
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/christine-winburn-shaw
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DylanJamesShawMusic
• Other: Spotify:
  
  Apple Music:
  https://music.apple.com/us/artist/dylan-james-boogie-boy-shaw/1610
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