t the ripe age of 30, I have been a professional guitarist, musician, and actor for over a decade. I Grew up in Elkins, WV, and started piano lessons at age 6, and picked up the guitar around 15. Growing up only blocks away from the Augusta Heritage Center, I was surrounded by Appalachian musical traditions my whole life. I was fortunate enough to learn first hand from a wealth of world class musicians, including Bob Margolin, Cephas & Wiggins, Tony Furtado, Richard Smith, and Jim Schwall. I spent some time around Morgantown, WV, playing shows with The Joint Chiefs and Polonius Monkey and shortly finished a BA in Theatre Arts at Davis and Elkins College.
In 2001 I showed up in the Greater Cincinnati area as a founding member of the Shadowbox at Newport on the Levee. I spent over five years on stage at the Shadowbox as a guitarist with the house band BillWho?, and as an integral part of the comedy ensemble. While with the company I performed in 1200+ shows for an audience of more than 150,000. I made regular appearences on Shadowbox Wired, a sketch comedy show which aired on FOX and WB affiliates in the Cincinnati and Columbus area for two seasons, both of which picked up regional Emmy nominations. In early 2006 I helped inaugurate the Shadowbox Musical Series in Columbus as a cast/band member for The Who's TOMMY. Recently I had the pleasure of performing along side original Saturday Night Live cast member Garrett Morris to kick off the Newport Celebrity Series. In January of 2007 I finished a self-produced album 'Steady Rollin', which is available at www.allentalbott.com, and shortly after joined forces with Dangerous Jim and The Slims . The rest of this year will find me playing with The Slims throughout the tri-state, promoting my album, and working on some new recording projects.... oh yeah.... and in Oct. of 2006, my daughter Jadyn joined the world and has been lighting up my life ever since.
