by Joe Zentis

Did you know that the music from a guitar might travel all over the world, resonate for more than sixty years, and bless as well as entertain countless audiences? That’s what has happened with the music of legendary local country/gospel singer and musician George “Hutch” Shaw.

“Someone gave him a banjo or something when he was 16,” said Kenton Shaw, the first of Hutch’s eight children. “He traded it for a guitar. Nobody showed him how to play it. He just learned evidently from seeing a guy here and there or listening to records and stuff.”

Then he learned to play mandolin, banjo, and fiddle. Although music was not his livelihood, it certainly was his life. He would perform wherever and whenever he could, sometimes in fairs, festivals, and dances, and sometimes in unexpected venues.

“When people around here went to his barbershop,” Kenton said, “they allowed extra time because they knew that after they got their haircut done, Dad would grab his banjo and sing for them. People just loved that.”

When Kenton was nine, Hutch started teaching him to play the guitar.

Kenton said. “Dad worked in the refinery in Emlenton,” Kenton said. “When he’d come home from work, I was able to show him that I could do fairly well with the song he was teaching me. He was really tickled about that.”

Hutch soon recognized that Kenton could only do so much on that small, old guitar, so he hitchhiked to Oil City and bought a brand new Gibson flattop. Every night when Hutch got home from work, he would play mandolin or fiddle and Kenton would play guitar.

“Then he wanted me to sing with him. I’d sing lead and he’d sing tenor to harmonize with me. I couldn’t stay on the lead; I’d slip onto the tenor with him. So we started plugging my ear next to him.”

Hutch’s family grew to include four boys and four girls: Kenton, Jimmy, Yvonne, Tommy, Barbara, Brian, Karen, and Brenda.

“These guys, my brothers, are not just good,” Karen said. “All of them are so talented, they are fabulous.”

When Kenton entered the navy, he played music wherever and whenever he could. He and his wife Sonia started singing together at churches, camp meetings, and revivals. As a minister and pastor, he performed and led great gospel music in his churches for many years.

In the early 1970s, Hutch Shaw’s youngest son Brian moved to Nashville to take his talent to the home of country music. While he was sitting in a bar with some friends, he picked up his guitar and sang a Hank Williams song.

Brian remembers the moment clearly. “A guy came over and said, ‘Do you have a manager or a record label?’ I said no. He said, ‘Meet me at RCA in the morning at nine o’clock.’ The next day I signed a recording contract with RCA.”

Brian cut some records, toured, and even performed on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. In 1974, his single, “Here We Go Again,” moved up to number 12 on the country music chart. In 1975, the Country Radio Broadcasters listed him in their “New Faces of Country Music.”
Despite this great beginning, the vagaries of the music industry curtailed Brian’s chances.

“Contracts in those days called for a certain number of singles over three years,” Brian said. “If you had a monster hit, they would have you cut an album. Just about the time they were going to do that with me, the RCA corporate executives from New York came down and cleaned house – not only me, but everybody else, too.”
Brian recently moved back to Sandy Lake where he is focused on writing and performing gospel music. Although Hutch passed away in 1992 at the age of 75, his musical legacy continues to spread across the country and beyond. Through his talented children and grandchildren, it has enlivened churches and Christian missions both here and on other continents; entertained people on cruise ships, concert tours, and recordings; and even brightened countless homes live over radio from the stage of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry.

And we in Mercer County are blessed with the music of the youngest and oldest of Hutch Shaw’s sons, Brian and Kenton, who will perform together in a concert at the Hickory VFW at 8 p.m. on Friday, September 24th. Minimum donation for a ticket is $10.*

©2010 by Joe Zentis

*All proceeds from the concert will benefit “Citizens to Elect Roberta Biros for State Senate.” Paid for by Citizens to Elect Roberta Biros for State Senate, Dr. Martha Moore, Treasurer