# The Shams
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{{Short description|US musical trio}}
{{About|the female pop trio|the garage rock group|Thee Shams}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
'''The Shams''' were an all-female [New York](/source/New_York_City) [folk pop](/source/folk_pop) trio in the 1980s and early 1990s, featuring [Amy McMahon Rigby](/source/Amy_Rigby), Sue Garner, and Amanda Uprichard. Some critics have credited the band with pioneering elements of what would later become known as the [Americana](/source/Americana_(music)) and [No Depression](/source/Alternative_country) movements in American music. Others have described them as "queens of urban folkdom" or "[riot grrrls](/source/Riot_Grrrl) unplugged."[{{cite news | title=A weekend of blues is on tap |last=Haymes |first=Greg |date=1994-06-02 |newspaper=The Times Union}}] Punk rock musician [Richard Hell](/source/Richard_Hell) has labeled their music "beauty parlor soul."[{{cite web |url=http://www.matadorrecords.com/bios/bio_shams.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060525115113/http://www.matadorrecords.com/bios/bio_shams.html|archivedate=2006-05-25 |title=''Quilt'' review|work=Matador Records |accessdate=2007-11-17 |date=September 1992 |last=Hell |first=Richard}}]
Rigby, Garner, and Uprichard began performing together in the early 1980s in a band called the Last Roundup, a period in which they also sang [Christmas carol](/source/Christmas_carol)s together at parties and outside friends' homes. They all held day jobs when they formed The Shams, but they soon found themselves performing with musicians such as the [Indigo Girls](/source/Indigo_Girls), [Soul Asylum](/source/Soul_Asylum) and [Buffalo Tom](/source/Buffalo_Tom).[{{cite news | title=The Shams: Pop, folk and scene's from women's lives |last=Popson |first=Tom |date=1992-04-24 |newspaper=Chicago Tribune }}]
The name "The Shams" is a partial reference to the "[outsider music](/source/outsider_music)" group [The Shaggs](/source/The_Shaggs), an all-female band whose lack of training and unusual melodies have prompted some critics to label them the worst band ever. "In our early days, people often compared us to the Shaggs, and we didn't have a name, so we decided on the Shams," Rigby told the ''[Chicago Tribune](/source/Chicago_Tribune)'' in 1992. The name also refers to the American vocal group [The Tams](/source/The_Tams).