Like America, Chuck Shaw began his adventure in the East. From there both stories, of 
nation and artist, sweep westward, drawing from new surroundings, absorbing what 
each station on their way has to offer. 

America’s journey is still underway. But in a sense Chuck Shaw has found what he was 
looking for: a place where he can put down roots and nurture his unique artistry. 
For Shaw, that place is, as someone once crooned, deep in the heart of Texas. He’s 
been there for just a few years but that’s time enough for him to know he has come 
home. With his love for old-school country music, his ability to write songs nourished by 
that tradition and sing them with rare expression, this is where he has always belonged. 
“Even when I was in high school back in New Jersey, I knew I was probably going to 
end up in Texas,” he reflects. “And later, when I was in Colorado and Wyoming, friends 
kept telling me, ‘You need to move to Texas. You sound like you belong there. That’s 
where the real stuff is.’” 

The “real stuff” is country music that’s about substance, not style. All you need to do is listen to his self-titled debut album to know it’s true. It’s in the raunch, grit and swagger of “Dirty Woman Creek,” the neon glow and greasy groove of “Ain’t No Bad Time,” the morning-after cobwebs and cold daylight that color “Hope I Can Get Through Today” 

We could go through all 12 tracks, up to the handclaps and gospel affirmation of “Rise 
Up,” each one written by Shaw except for his striking rendition of “Long Black Veil” and 
little-known gem “Ain’t No Bad Time.” Like so many good things in life, it goes by fast 
and easy and then lingers until it’s cued up again. 

This is Lone Star country — but the deeper you listen, the more hints you hear of the 
path he took to reach that destination. In his first single, “Burn That Oil,” the harmonica 
riff and nostalgic reminiscence might bring Springsteen to mind. Shaw wouldn’t deny it, 
being born and raised through high school in New Jersey. But even in his formative 
years, with his friends immersed mainly in rap, Shaw felt the call of country, first from 
groups like The Eagles and Creedence Clearwater Revival. 

“A lot of the rock I grew up with had country roots,” he says. “Then one day in high 
school, after I’d gotten my heart broken, I bought the John Fogerty album Blue Ridge 
Rangers, where he covered a bunch of country songs including ‘She Thinks I Still Care.’ 
That song really spoke to me. And through the album as a whole I discovered George 
Jones, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and all the others who would influence me so 
much.” After getting his first electric guitar at age 13, Shaw formed a band — probably the only one in his part of the Garden State that featured a country fiddle player. He started 
writing songs too. The more he crafted his style, the more determined he was to seek 

inspiration out west, the cradle of the music he had come to love. So after graduation, 
he headed out to the Rocky Mountains to study creative writing at Colorado College. 
Equally important, he honed his vocal and instrumental chops with the school’s 
celebrated Bluegrass Ensemble, an education that included three appearances at the 
Durango Bluegrass Meltdown.

 
Eventually, after working for a couple of summers on a ranch in Wyoming and then 
spending a year in Arizona that included four months on the road with the country/rock 
band Mostly Water, Shaw made his pilgrimage to Nashville. With money he’d saved 
from Mostly Water, he recorded an EP and, in the summer of 2015, started playing in 
Music City’s fabled honky-tonks. Nights of grinding out country hits in touristy dives 
sharpened his performance skills. It also cued him when it was time to get out of town. 
“It was exciting at first,” Shaw remembers. “It taught me how to interact with the crowd, 
how to get people excited. And there were some great singers and players down there. 
But I started hating it after a while because I just couldn’t stand to play mainstream 
pop/country day and night, over and over again. Even songs that I loved got beaten to 
death. There was so little originality.” 

And so Shaw embarked on the last stage of his Odyssey, this time to San Marcos late 
in 2016. Since then, he went from finding a place to live in a town filled with strangers to 
building up friends and followers through open-mike nights and paying gigs throughout 
Central Texas. “I fought hard to play anywhere I could,” he says. “Even if meant 
annoying the heck out of club owners, I did what I had to do to get my name out there.” 
Persistence has paid off and put this young man square in the spotlight as one of 
traditional country’s most promising new talents. Chuck Shaw makes that more than 
clear — and for those who somehow still don’t get the message, he’s happy to lay it all 
out in plain Texan: “The music I love is real,” he insists. “It’s pure. It’s a great American art form. I love how it sounds — the fiddle, the pedal steel — and how it feels. They know that down where I live, but when I play somewhere else, where people only know that mainstream pop country, I explain to them: This is how we do it in Texas. 
“This is country music.”