Robert Shaw

by Bill Dahl

He didnt record much at all — a marvelous 1963 album for Almanac, reissued on Chris Strachwitzs Arhoolie label, remains his principal recorded legacy — but barrelhouse pianist Robert Shaw helped greatly to establish a distinctive regional style of pounding the 88s around Houston, Fort Worth, and Galveston during the 1920s and 30s.

Those decades represented Shaws playing heyday, when he forged a stunning barrelhouse style of his own in the bars, dance halls, and whorehouses along the route of the Santa Fe railroad. Shaw got around — in 1933, he had a radio program in Oklahoma City. But by the mid-30s, Shaw relegated his playing to the back burner to open a grocery store. Mack McCormick coaxed him back into action in 1963 and the results as collected on Arhoolie were magnificent; The Cows was a piece of incredible complexity that would wilt anything less than a legitimate ivories master. Shaw continued to perform stateside and in Europe intermittently during the 1970s, turning up unexpectedly in California in 1981 to help Strachwitz celebrate Arhoolies 20th anniversary.