Few American Musicians have touched more people in more ways than Robert Shaw. In Dear People, Joseph Mussulman deftly places Shaw and his career against the backdrop of developments in American musical history since the 1940s. What emerges most powerfully is the character of Shaw himself. Dear People Chronicles the career of a remarkable man and a gifted musician, whose foremost conviction is that 'to be an artist is not the privilege of a few but the necessity of us all.'