Shaw, Lauchlin, 1912-2000

Lauchlin Nordan Shaw, a third-generation farmer from Anderson Creek Township, Harnett County, N.C., taught himself how to play his father's fiddle when he was ten years old. Shaw traveled and recorded extensively, often with A.C. Overton, his musical partner for 50 years. He was repeatedly honored for his traditional fiddling style and promotion of old-time music.

Lauchlin Nordan Shaw (1912-2000), a third-generation farmer, lived in Anderson Creek Township in Harnett County, N.C., where his ancestors from the Isle of Jura, Scotland, settled around 1830. Lauchlin, the ninth child of twelve, taught himself how to play his father's fiddle when he was ten years old. Lauchlin learned many songs from his father, Archibald Alexander, his Uncle Colin, and his older brothers. Malcolm Shaw, who was three years older than Lauchlin, became a well-known storyteller in the Gaelic tradition. By the mid 1920s, Lauchlin began playing songs for dances, unique to the Sandhills region, such as: Dancing Ladies, Little Moses, and Sally With The Run-down Shoes.

In the course of learning the local repertoire from older players, Lauchlin Shaw developed a distinctive playing style, combining complex melody lines with a rhythmic bowing pattern suited to dance music. Shaw's affection for old-time music shows in the finely crafted renditions of songs and tunes in an exuberant playing style.

Shaw attended local dances less often after he married and began raising children. In those days, the only time he played was when his neighbor Robert Temple, or Wade Yates and A.C. Overton from Chatham County, would come to visit at Christmas and other occasions. As the children grew up, however, Lauchlin returned to play at dances. His daughter Evelyn Shaw, also a fiddle player, remembers being bundled up to go to winter dances with her parents.

Beginning in the mid 1970s, a group of musicians, young and old, would come to Shaw's home fondly called, the home place, to play music and enjoy a potluck dinner. At these gatherings, Shaw led musicians such as Wayne and Margaret Martin, Virgil Craven, Fred Olson, Glenn Davis, Marvin Gaster, Tom Hearn, Smith McInnis, and others. Many of the songs played during these evenings at Shaw's home were passed down from generation to generation: Tiptoe Betty Martin, Uncle Joe, and Duck's Eyeball.

Lauchlin Shaw began to take his musical abilities far outside Harnett County, N.C. In 1978, he toured Europe with the Apple Chill Cloggers of Chapel Hill, N.C., as the lead fiddler. In 1982, he played at the World's Fair in Knoxville, Tenn. In 1987, he was honored for his traditional fiddling style and for promoting old-time music with North Carolina Folklore Society's Brown-Hudson Folklore Award. In 1992, Lauchlin Shaw and A. C. Overton received the North Carolina Arts Council's Heritage Award in the category of Folk/Traditional Music.

In 1996, a CD was produced, Sally With the Run-Down Shoes, with Lauchlin Shaw and A. C. Overton, his musical partner of 50 years. This CD, a collaborative project between the North Carolina Arts Council's Folklife Institute and Marimac Records, documents the fiddle and finger-style banjo music of the eastern Carolina Piedmonts, a fiddle and banjo tradition that has been largely overlooked. Lauchlin Shaw's daughter, Evelyn Shaw, is appears on the CD, playing Home Waltz and Little Moses with her father.

Lauchlin Shaw died in 2000 at the age of 88.