Don Shinn is an English keyboard player, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and vocalist. He is known primarily as an organist and pianist, and also plays vibraphone. In the early-mid 1960’s he recorded and performed with British Beat groups The MeddyEVILS, The Echoes

The Echoes

The Echoes were formed in London England in early 1960 by singer Chris Wayne for the Conway Twitty, Johnny Preston and Freddy Cannon tour of Great Britain. The Echoes were originally made up from “The Spacemen skiffle group” which were Joe Browns skiffle group. Joe was a regular on Boy Meets Girls...

 (backing Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...

), and The Soul Agents (featuring Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....

). In 1967 he formed his own band The Shinn, which also featured future Uriah Heep

Uriah Heep

Uriah Heep is a fictional character created by Charles Dickens in his novel David Copperfield.The character is notable for his cloying humility, obsequiousness, and insincerity, making frequent references to his own "'umbleness". His name has become synonymous with being a yes man...

 bassist Paul Newton

Paul Newton

Paul Newton, Australian artist who has twice won the Packing Room award at the Archibald Prize. He won in 1996 with a portrait of announcer John Laws, and again in 2001 with a portrait of characters Roy Slaven and HG Nelson, which also won the people's choice award...

, future drummer for The Nice

The Nice

The Nice were an English progressive rock band from the 1960s, known for their blend of rock, jazz and classical music. Their debut album, The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack was released in 1967 to immediate acclaim. It is often considered the first progressive rock album...

 Brian "Blinky" Davison, and vocalist Eddie Lamb. In 1969 he released two solo instrumental albums ‘Temples With Prophets’ (aka 'Don Shinn Takes A Trip') and ‘Departures’. He was a member of the English band Dada (featuring Elkie Brooks

Elkie Brooks

Elkie Brooks is an English singer, formerly a vocalist with Vinegar Joe, and later a solo artist. Elkie has been nominated twice for Brit Awards' top female singer. She is known for her powerful husky voice...

) and appears on their eponymous album released in 1970. He has also worked with Kiki Dee

Kiki Dee

Kiki Dee is an English singer with a career spanning more than 40 years....

, James Taylor

James Taylor

James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....

, Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck

Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...

, Stan Tracey

Stan Tracey

Stanley William Tracey CBE is a British jazz pianist and composer, most influenced by Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.-Early career:...

, Persian vocalist Parvaneh Farid, and British band Renaissance

Renaissance (band)

Renaissance are an English progressive rock band, most notable for their 1978 UK top 10 hit "Northern Lights" and progressive rock classics like "Carpet of the Sun", "Mother Russia" and "Ashes Are Burning".-Original incarnation :...

. He is cited as a pioneer within the Progressive Rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and has been acknowledged by British keyboardist/composer Keith Emerson

Keith Emerson

Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...

 as a major influence. Uriah Heep

Uriah Heep (band)

Uriah Heep are an English rock band formed in London in 1969 and regarded as a seminal classic hard rock act of the 1970s. Uriah Heep's progressive/art rock/heavy metal fusion's distinctive features have always been massive keyboards sound, strong vocal harmonies and David Byron's operatic vocals...

 bassist Paul Newton

Paul Newton (musician)

Paul Newton was the original bass guitarist for Uriah Heep, and played on the band's first three albums. He subsequently played for a band called "Carnival" for several years on the Mecca Palais circuit and also worked as a studio musician and appeared on various recordings...

has also credited Shinn as a mentor and teacher.