Robert Springer: "Being Yourself Is More Than Tryin' To Be Somebody Else" An interview with Robert Shaw: Austin, Texas, July 21st 1975.- Blues Unlimited 129 (March/April1978), pp. 13-21 ‘BEING YOURSELF IS MORE THAN TRYIN' TO SOMEBODY ELSE’ An Interview with Robert Shaw: Austin, Texas, July 21st 1975 Robert Springer Robert ‘Fud’ Shaw, the last survivor of the Shaw: I was born in Stafford, Texas, about Springer: Did anybody play in the family? Southern Texas blues pianists, is an incredible twelve miles from Houston, on August 9th Shaw: My mother did and I got another sister talker, an interviewer’s dream: one question is 1908. My daddy owned a ranch in Fort Bend plays the piano and I got a baby sister plays and County and Stafford. I had another brother played but he died. My often enough to trigger off long detail-filled Springer: So where did you grow up? Partly on mother could play guitar too. She could do answers from the resources of his phenomenal the ranch and partly in the city..? most anything. memory. Needless to say, my interest never Shaw: That’s how we grew up, from the city Springer: What sort of music was she playing? flagged while I taped his words. Additionally, out to the ranch. You see, Ash County and Fort Shaw: She play spiritual music. You know, Mr. Shaw, although he only plays occasionally Bend County, they joins. that’s a rare thing about music when you start Springer: What started your interest in the to learnin’ music if you go to learnin’ it: you in public, has kept his interest in the piano and piano? play a little spiritual, you play a little jazz, you music in general. He practises often and seri­ Shaw: You see, that was in Prohibition time, play a little blues, you don’t know where you ously, buys sheet-music and learns new pieces. when I was a little boy along at that time and, gonna end up at! You realize yourself, you To top it all off, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw form a oh 1 liked to see the women dancin’ and hug catch on to yourself somewhere along that line them fellers playin’ the piano and have fun. there and then you find out where you’re goin’. happy couple, apparently devoid of financial And, you know how a boy is: he take a likin’ You have a beat as easy... and you become worries. But that’s thanks to Robert Shaw’s to something he grow and, like, I was just a accultured to it and you just got your right feel grocery store. Whoever heard of a bluesman person liked to do something to make other and your right bounce! It’s the same in playin’ getting rich on his music? people happy. the piano. You’ll find out what type of pianist Robert Shaw (Mike Rowe) Robert Springer: "Being Yourself Is More Than Tryin' To Be Somebody Else" An interview with Robert Shaw: Austin, Texas, July 21st 1975.- Blues Unlimited 129 (March/April1978), pp. 13-21 you wanna be, whether you wanna be a group like it really should. fifteen, twenty people in there drinkin’! musicianer in the piano field or a soloist. Lotsa Springer: But when you started playing the Springer: Really? difference! If you gonna be a soloist, you gonna piano around the house, you weren’t playing Shaw: Sure! They couldn’t get no money no have to learn enough about the keyboard to spiritual music? other way! In 1927, ’28, ’29, you could find... know a soloist key. See, when you by yourself, Shaw: No. it was no money, it was no work to do... the you can’t use a key like C and A and get back Springer: And your mother didn’t say anything average man, I don’t care how big a family he there, the spaces is too far apart! That’s the against it? had, he wasn’t makin’ over twelve, fifteen dollars reason you see a group piano-player have such a Shaw: No. Uh-uh. a week. So he had to get it some kinda way. So hard time tryin’ to play a number by himself. Springer: Did you start playing the piano they put the whiskey in a pitcher and they set Soloist keys you can get back on time, the because all your family was playing or because that pitcher right close to the sink. If the police spaces is not so far apart. Now, you take G, F, of other people outside? You told me some­ break in on you and arrest you, he had to have B flat and E, now, them’s my pet keys! 1 can times you’d see piano-players at other people’s some evidence, but he couldn’t get none out of play asleep in G and B flat! places. that, ’cause when he break that door and come Springer: Did your mother play different music Shaw: Well, that’s true. That’s how I heard the in there, they’d pour that whiskey down the on the guitar and on piano? boogie woogie. That came out of Louisiana. sink. Them people was slick with that whiskey, Shaw: My mama loved to dance. She could play First time I heard ‘Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie’ was I’m tellin’ you for sure. I tell you what kind of the ragtime, but mostly she played spiritual at some friends’ house. Well, it’s like any­ times they had with that whiskey: the same music on the piano and also on the guitar. When thing. You know, a kid, like we see them kids kind of times they havin’ with this weed. I was a little boy we didn’t have but two songs out there a while ago [here Robert Shaw refers Springer: When did you decide to make money in America to have fun off of and dance and to a couple of kids from the neighbourhood who with your music? you know what that was? ‘It’s A Long Way To had passed in front of his house while we were Shaw: The same boy what we were listenin’ a Tipperary’ and ‘St. Louis Blues’! And they just sitting on the porch], them two adolescent kids while ago, we called him Shine. [Before the as popular now as they was then, but these about twelve or thirteen years old. They wanted interview we had listened to some Texas pianists modern piano-players, they can’t fool with that to fight. Now, that’s all a kid know, but that’s on a record]. He was real dark, nice complexion kind of music, too rough for ’em! Uh-uh! Now, about as stupid a trick as a person could think dark, smooth skin guy. His name was Harold W.C. Handy he wrote this number, but the guy of, is fight. Because you might get scratched up Holiday and it’s a lot of tricks to that stuff when in Houston is the one that really made that and lose the fight, you don’t know what’s gonna you learn. I was playin’ for a lady had a girl, piece popular. Just like he was a guy like Louis happen. It’s best to get out of those things if wasn’t a girl, she was a woman; I was about Armstrong, but they got no record of him. His there’s any way possible. Somebody’s gotta grown too and I could play pretty good, but name was Sid Owl. He was a fellow just about jump on me, ’cause I sure ain’t gonna start it. nothin’ like I can now. But anyway or another my colour, a little heavier and a little taller, but, It’s stupid! And so, whatever we felt like playin’, the guy was a friend of my daddy. He knew my man, he could tear the trumpet on those pieces! whatever type, was all right. She done it like daddy and he knew me too. But 1 was gettin’ That’s the reason the ‘St. Louis Blues’ is what the Bible said. But now they puts too much pretty close up there among the best. So, where they are today is on account of him'. 1 guess you with the Bible. I believe the Bible leads more this guy went on Fridays and Saturdays to heard about the black people celebratin’ the people goin’ the other way than the way they’re gamble, it was more money there than where I 19th of June. Well, the largest 19th of June we supposed to go. Because the Bible explains and was playin’ and those people knew this guy had in the State of Texas happened in Brenham, reads and speaks and it don’t take none of your ’cause he come there all the time. So they asked Texas and he played that picnic every year. life away from you: it tells you how to do your him about me and they said ‘I been tryin’ to get Now, you could get him other places any time life. Don’t do nothing what’s gonna cause harm old Shaw to play for ’em, but I can’t get him’. of the year, but wasn’t no use tryin’ to get him or damnation to other folks. It tell you it’s time Said ‘Where he playin’ at? ’. He said ‘He’s down on 19th of June ’cause he had to come to Bren­ to whistle, it’s time to sing, it’s time to dance there at Stafford at.