Robert Shaw

He didn’t record very much in any way — a marvelous 1963 record for Almanac, reissued on Chris Strachwitz’s Arhoolie label, remains to be his primary recorded legacy — but barrelhouse pianist Robert Shaw helped greatly to determine a unique regional design of pounding the 88s around Houston, Fort Value, and Galveston through the 1920s and ’30s. Those years symbolized Shaw’s playing heyday, when he forged a sensational barrelhouse design of his very own in the pubs, dancehalls, and whorehouses along the way from the Santa Fe Railroad. Shaw got around — in 1933, he previously a radio plan in Oklahoma Town. But with the middle-’30s, Shaw relegated his playing to the trunk burner to open up a supermarket. Mack McCormick coaxed him back to actions in 1963 as well as the outcomes as gathered on Arhoolie had been wonderful; “The Cows” was a bit of incredible complexity that could wilt anything significantly less than the best ivories professional. Shaw continued to execute stateside and in European countries intermittently through the 1970s, arriving unexpectedly in California in 1981 to greatly help Strachwitz celebrate Arhoolie’s 20th wedding anniversary.