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Joan Shelley

American folk musician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ38458900 ↗
Source-derived summary

Joan Shelley (born 1985) is an American indie folk musician from Louisville, Kentucky, United States.

Career

Shelley has released nine solo studio recordings. Her second album, Ginko, and third album, Farthest Field (with Daniel Martin Moore), were released in 2012 on Ol Kentuck. In 2014, Shelley released her fourth album, Electric Ursa, on No Quarter Records. In 2015 she released her fifth album, Over and Even, also on No Quarter. In 2017, Shelley released her eponymous sixth album. Her seventh album, Like the River Loves the Sea, was released in 2019.

No Quarter released Shelley's eighth album, The Spur, on 24 June 2022. Upon its release, the album received critical acclaim.

Personal life

Shelley attended the University of Georgia.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Joan Shelley” as american folk musician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1985, 2012, 2014, 2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1985. The account is most persuasive where Joan, Shelley and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american folk musician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q38458900. VIAF identifies the subject as 117145541829496601875. The Library of Congress control number is no2015167750. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1985, 2012, 2014 and 2015.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Joan Shelley”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Joan Shelley primary sources, Joan Shelley archive and Joan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Joan Shelley”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Joan Shelley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.