12/05/1944 - 10/14/2005

… broken field running in an open arena – with no barrier but the sundown – no shackles but the merciless past – that reminds me the war is over… A boombox for the heart, a rotorooter for the soul…Somebody from the East’ll do me alright …



Butch Shatto was born in Iowa. He saw much of the country roll by from the backseat of a ’49 Hudson, along with his two sisters and a younger brother, and a drunken dad at the wheel who was running from demons that included Hank Williams and a bottle of cheap port wine and a mother who dreamed of better days … from New Mexico and Arizona to the San Joaquin Valley of California. He lived in one-room shacks in migrant labor camps, a young boy who picked cotton alongside resigned black hobos who sang despair in the sunlight.

Somehow he finished high school in Salem, Oregon. Butch cannot read music and never took piano lessons, but he still put together a jazz quartet and a Dixieland band in high school. He was voted the most talented by his classmates.

He tried being a hippie until the deception nearly killed him. His lost weekend lasted for over twenty-five years. But he’s out of the furnace now. He watched the world unfold over the hood of a taxicab for too long.

He’s out there – has always been out there. He’s got something to say about it.

“Dedicated to all I loved and hurt in this giant classroom.”

Copyright 2005 Butch Shatto with SFB Publishing