Eddie Shaw is an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

, Chicago blues

Chicago blues

The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...

 tenor saxophonist

Tenor saxophone

The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...

.

Biography

In his teenage

Adolescence

Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...

 years, Shaw played tenor saxophone

Tenor saxophone

The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...

 with local blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

s such as Little Milton

Little Milton

James Milton Campbell, Jr. , better known as Little Milton, was an American electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul singer and guitarist, best known for his hit records "Grits Ain't Groceries" and "We're Gonna Make It."-Biography:Milton was born James Milton Campbell, Jr., in the Mississippi...

 and Willie Love

Willie Love

Willie Love was an American Delta blues pianist. He is best known for his association with, and accompaniment of Sonny Boy Williamson II.-Biography:...

. At the age of 14, he was involved in a jam session

Jam session

Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...

 in Greenville, Mississippi

Greenville, Mississippi

Greenville is a city in Washington County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 48,633 at the 2000 census, but according to the 2009 census bureau estimates, it has since declined to 42,764, making it the eighth-largest city in the state. It is the county seat of Washington...

 with Ike Turner

Ike Turner

Isaac Wister Turner was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. In a career that lasted more than half a century, his repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk...

's band. At a gig

Concert

A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...

 in Itta Bena, Mississippi

Itta Bena, Mississippi

Itta Bena is a city in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 2,208 at the 2000 census. The town's name is derived from the Choctaw phrase iti bina, meaning "forest camp"...

, when the then 20-year-old Shaw performed, Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...

 invited him to join his Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 based band.

Shaw more or less divided the tenor saxophone duties with A.C. Reed

A.C. Reed

Aaron Corthen, better known as A.C. Reed was an American blues saxophonist, closely associated with the Chicago blues scene from the 1940s into the 2000s.- Biography :...

. In 1972 he joined Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

, leading his band, the Wolf Gang, and writing half the songs on The Back Door Wolf (1973). After the singer's death in 1976 he took over the band and its residency at the 1815 Club; renamed Eddie's Place. Shaw led the gang on Living Chicago Blues Vol. 1 and Have Blues - Will Travel (1980), and recorded albums in different company for Isabel Records, Rooster Blues

Rooster Blues

Rooster Blues is an American independent record label founded in 1980. The label is dedicated to blues music from the Mississippi Delta. Rooster Blues was co-founded by Jim O'Neal in Chicago, and initially released 14 albums by South Side blues musicians. In 1986, O'Neal moved the label to...

, and Wolf Records.

By the late 1970s, Shaw's own recording career started, with an appearance on Alligator Records

Alligator Records

Alligator Records is a Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971.Iglauer started the label with his own savings to record and produce his favorite band Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers, whom his employer, Bob Koester of Delmark Records, declined to record...

' Living Chicago Blues anthologies (1978), his own LPs for Evidence and Rooster Blues, and more recent discs

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 for Rooster Blues (In the Land of the Crossroads) and Wolf (Home Alone).

Shaw's many contributions to the blues include arranging

Arrangement

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

 tracks for The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions

The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions

The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions is an album by blues musician Howlin' Wolf, released in the summer of 1971 on Chess Records, catalogue CH 60008...

(which featured Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...

, Bill Wyman

Bill Wyman

Bill Wyman is an English musician best known as the bass guitarist for the English rock and roll band the Rolling Stones from 1962 until 1992. Since 1997, he has recorded and toured with his own band, Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings...

, Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

 and others) and performing with a list of blues notables that included Hound Dog Taylor

Hound Dog Taylor

Theodore Roosevelt "Hound Dog" Taylor was an American Chicago blues guitarist and singer.-Career:Taylor was born in Natchez, Mississippi in 1915 . He originally played piano, but began playing guitar when he was 20...

, Freddie King

Freddie King

Freddie King , thought to have been born as Frederick Christian, originally recording as Freddy King, and nicknamed "the Texas Cannonball", was an influential African-American blues guitarist and singer. He is often mentioned as one of "the Three Kings" of electric blues guitar, along with Albert...

, Otis Rush

Otis Rush

Otis Rush is a blues musician, singer and guitarist. His distinctive guitar style features a slow burning sound and long bent notes...

 and Magic Sam

Magic Sam

Samuel "Magic Sam" Gene Maghett was an American Chicago blues musician. Maghett was born in Grenada, Mississippi, United States, and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Little Walter...

 (on his Black Magic

Black Magic (Magic Sam album)

Black Magic is a blues album by Magic Sam released in 1968 by Delmark Records.- Track listing :# "I Just Want A Little Bit"# "What Have I Done Wrong"# "Easy, Baby"# "You Belong To Me"# "It's All Your Fault"# "I Have The Same Old Blues"...

album).

Legacy

One of his sons, Eddie "Vaan" Shaw Jr. (born 1955), joined the Wolf Gang playing on some of his father's recordings. A disciple of Wolf's protege, Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer, best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band. His singular playing is characterized by "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic...

, he has recorded two albums of his own - Morning Rain and The Trail of Tears.

Another son, the husky Stan Shaw

Stan Shaw

Stan Shaw is an American actor.Born in Chicago, Illinois, he is the son of Bertha Shaw and saxophonist Eddie Shaw, and cousin of the late soul singers Sam Cooke and Tyrone Davis Brother of Vaan Shaw...

 (born 1952), is a Hollywood, California based character actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

.

Discography

• 1982 - Movin' and Groovin' Man - Evidence
• 1986 - King of the Road - Rooster Blues
• 1992 - In the Land of the Crossroads - Rooster Blues
  Rooster Blues
  Rooster Blues is an American independent record label founded in 1980. The label is dedicated to blues music from the Mississippi Delta. Rooster Blues was co-founded by Jim O'Neal in Chicago, and initially released 14 albums by South Side blues musicians. In 1986, O'Neal moved the label to...
  
  
• 1994 - Trail of Tears - Wolf
• 1995 - Home Alone - Wolf
• 1996 - The Blues Is Nothing But Good News! - Wolf
• 1997 - Can't Stop Now - Delmark
  Delmark Records
  Delmark Records is an independent American jazz and blues record label, based in Chicago since 1958. The label originated in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1953 when owner Bob Koester released a recording of the Windy City Six, a traditional jazz group, under the "Delmar" imprint.-History:Born in 1932 in...
  
  
• 1999 - Too Many Highways - Wolf
• 2005 - Give Me Time - Wolf