Trevor Shaw

I'm Trevor Shaw. I go to bluegrass shows, I film them, and I talk to the people who play them. That's been the whole project for fifteen years.

How I got here

I was raised in a folk music family and had no idea what I was sitting on. The Kingston Trio or Johnny Cash could be playing in the living room on any given day, and if it wasn't rock and roll I wasn't interested. It did leave me open to stringed instruments, banjo and guitar especially.

My first brush with this music was a trade in a parking lot after a Phish show in 2000. I came away with two very early Yonder Mountain String Band sets, one from 1999 and one from 2000. They were crude recordings and they didn't speak to me.

Eight years later a friend traveling on business shared Yonder Mountain's New Year's run from 2006. That one got me, and I still play those shows.

Later that same year my father was in town and we had lunch with a friend of his who had just come back from IBMA raving about a band called The Infamous Stringdusters. He handed my father their first two albums. Those CDs never made it home with him, because I kept them. That is what launched me into the bluegrass life I live today.

The archive

By 2010 phones were finally good enough to shoot video, so I started a YouTube channel. It didn't take long before I wanted better quality and moved up to a real camera.

My first full-length videos are from November 20, 2010. The Infamous Stringdusters at Variety Playhouse. I wasn't trying to build anything. I just wanted to keep it.

I never really stopped. There are more than 3,000 videos now. A lot of them are single songs. Eighty-three shows have a set of their own, so you can watch the songs I filmed that night in the order they were played. 2016 was my busiest year. I posted more than 500 videos.

A lot of these bands are still out there and you should go see them. Some are gone. Bands break up, and we've lost people. For a few of those nights, this is the only place the show still exists.

I have never monetized the channel and I don't intend to. I never want a musician to be able to say I'm making money off their art.

The podcast

In 2024 I started the podcast, because the videos were one-dimensional. I was already having conversations with the musicians I filmed, and not all of it belonged on camera. And if I had questions for the people who influenced me, I figured the fans had the same ones. The podcast is how you get to know a musician past the music, off the stage.

At the time I thought it was as simple as talking into a microphone and hitting record. It turns out it's a whole lot more complicated, and I'm still learning and improving with every episode.

Four seasons and forty-one episodes so far, out most weeks. I've talked with pickers, festival people, and folks who run the business side of this music. Some of the best conversations ran two parts because neither of us wanted to stop.

Where I am

Chattanooga, Tennessee, mostly. IBMA World of Bluegrass when it's in town, Telluride, SPBGMA, and whatever else I can get to. When I'm not at a show I'm probably watching the Cubs.

I film less than I used to. Phone cameras got good, so there are a lot of people shooting bluegrass now, and I'd rather put the hours into the podcast. When I do bring the camera out it's usually for a band most people haven't heard yet.

If you want to come on the podcast, or you know someone I should be talking to, find me at one of the links below.