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Singer, song writer, ace saxophonist, producer, arranger, band leader, session musician, and club owner, no one in the hallowed history of blues music has worn more hats and done them greater justice than Eddie Shaw.
An atypical wonder, Shaw is that rarest of commodities in a contemporary blues world dominated to excess by the electric guitar, a saxophonist who has made a successful living leading a blues band in Chicago. One of the greatest saxophonists to ever play the blues on the Windy City landscape, Shaw is a multiple Blues Music Award winner who has been parading his lusty licks and emotion-charged vocals on stage for more than 50 years. “I think playing the horn like I do is something like the old Baptist preacher,” says Shaw. “I try to have a good attack, don’t try to play a lot of notes, try to stay with the basics and tell a good story.”
Born in Benoit, Mississippi on March 20, 1937, Eddie Shaw came under the magical sway of horns at Coleman High School in nearby Greenville where he learned to play the trombone, clarinet and saxophone. His youthful listening environment was infused with the melodic sounds of the Mississippi Delta but he was also heavily influenced by the jump blues and R&B that he heard on the radio and from bands that constantly cruised through the area.
By the time that he was 14, Shaw was a professional, blowing his horn with the likes of Ike Turner and Little Milton Campbell. In 1957, Muddy Waters heard the young sax man in action and offered him the ultimate gig with his renowned band in Chicago. A year later, Shaw switched allegiance to Waters’ chief rival, the mighty Howlin’ Wolf staying with the legendary figure for 17 years, the last 5 as his personal manager and band leader. Shaw has also shared bandstands and recorded with the elite of the great Chicago blues tradition including Otis Rush, Freddie King and Magic Sam.
Since Howlin’ Wolf’s death in 1976, Shaw and his band, The Wolf Gang, have carried on the mix of delta blues aesthetic and electrified urban power that Wolf always championed. Among the premier Chicago blues bands touring today, they have performed in most American states and more than a dozen countries in venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, intimate clubs and presidential inaugurations.
One of the most respected blues musicians on the planet, Eddie Shaw’s knowledge and experience command a strategic position that transmits blues music’s formative traditions to its contemporary outpourings. Shaw’s most recent endeavours find him acting in the 2007 John Sayles’ movie “Honeydripper” starring Danny Glover, Stacey Keach and Mary Steenburgen and writing songs for and touring, as late as August 2008, with Thunder Bay favourite George Thorogood & the Destroyers. “Being around Eddie Shaw is one of the most spiritual things you can experience,” says a beaming Thorogood. “The man has such an incredible presence and is so full of life and positive energy, you can’t help but feel it. And, when it comes to the saxophone, this man is a true living legend.”
So, there you go! Prolific and versatile, Eddie Shaw rises from the traditional but forecasts the new. Roaring sax, emotive vocals, killer guitar (courtesy of Eddie’s son Eddie Vaan Shaw) and foot-loose dance rhythms to boot, right now there is nothing out there on the blues scene that smacks with so much fun as Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang! www.midcoast.com/~bluesman/eddie_shaw.html
Ken Wright
