Shari started playing guitar at the age of five. By the early 1970’s she had become a devoted blues fan, and learned how to play fingerstyle blues on the acoustic guitar. When she was sixteen, she began teaching guitar. She continues to teach, offering workshops in many of the cities where she performs.

Shari’s many years spent studying the work of the Delta Blues masters can be heard nightly as she picks up her acoustic guitar. Throwing herself into a stinging Robert Johnson interpretation, a jumping Robert Junior Lockwood shuffle, or the intricate finger stylings of Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt, Shari’s mastery of the acoustic tradition is apparent.

In 1990, she began touring with harmonica legend Peter Madcat Ruth. The two recorded four CDs and played in venues nationwide as well as Spain, Brazil, Poland, Canada and the Cayman Islands. An accomplished slide player, she appears on Rory Block’s 1992 release, Ain’t I A Woman. As a guitarist with considerable versatility, Shari is emerging as one of the country’s finest Blueswomen.