Ron Shaw, RIP

Ron Shaw of the Shaw Brothers died over the weekend. I don't know if people under 40 remember them much anymore, though the song "New Hampshire Naturally" was common enough from 1975-2000 that people thought it was actually the state song. This performance was in the Manchester Millyard.

When I came back to NH from college in 1975 they seemed to have come out of nowhere.  I didn't realise that they were previously part of The Brandywine Singers, one of our local representatives to the national folk scene. (Tom Rush was another.) The group had to disband when one of the Shaws was drafted in the Vietnam era.

It's always a delicious cliche to say "I liked their earlier stuff better," to show that you are really one of the insiders and were in this on long before all you latecomers. But in my case it's true.  "New Hampshire Naturally" is a little hokey - though I admit it is better than "Old New Hampshire" which I learned in grammar school. I loved their harmonies, and we heard them because they were local boys who made good.  I just happened to be alive at the time.