John Shaw's friends want to help pay off Music Store's debts so the owner can spend time with his sick wife. View Full Caption DNAinfo/Patty Wetli

IRVING PARK — Chicago musicians of a certain age likely either know John Shaw, or they know someone who knows someone who's heard of John Shaw.

Maybe he's sold, rented or traded them a guitar or a drum or a keyboard, or maybe he's talked them into or out of a particular amp or microphone.

And when any of this stuff needs repairing, well, they take it to Shaw for that too — first at the now-defunct Chicago Music Company, and for the last 18 years at the aptly and plainly named Music Store.

Along the way, Shaw has gained a reputation for fair dealing, a near encyclopedic knowledge of instruments and equipment and a propensity for turning customers' quick shopping trips into lengthy visits.

"You go in there, and he talks to you for as long as you'll stay there," said Lee Klawans, a Music Store customer for more than a decade.

But expertise and amiability don't pay the bills.

Business at Music Store, 3121 W. Irving Park Road, has not been great lately, sales clobbered by the internet, same as at a lot of brick-and-mortar shops.

"People come in, and they play and play and play, and then they buy online," said Ken Stevens, a pal of Shaw since they were co-workers at Chicago Music.

Shaw's been trying to unload the business for a while now but there haven't been any takers. Recently he fell behind in rent and taxes, but that's not what prompted Klawans to launch a GoFundMe for Shaw, 62.

The debts were worrisome, sure, but it's the cancer diagnosis doctors handed Shaw's wife Judy in December that's been hell.

"My wife being sick is way harder," Shaw said. "My wife is a lot more important."

John Shaw has been shuttling back and forth between the hospital and Music Store, where he puts in a handful of hours a day. [DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]

The day after Christmas, Judy told her husband to take her to the emergency room, when the back pain she'd been complaining of since August became unbearable.

"We thought it was a pulled muscle," he said. "They said cancer. Stage four."

Klawans, who had been trying to figure out a way to help his friend with his money woes, decided the time was right to approach Shaw about a fundraiser.

"I feel like I'm just doing something he can't do himself," Klawans said.

Folks have already responded with more than $6,000 in donations, the goal simply being to give Shaw some financial breathing room so he can focus on Judy.

The two have been married for 45 years, and if you do the math, yes, that means they were teenagers when they took their vows.

The sweethearts met while they were students at Waller High School, which was later renamed Lincoln Park High School.

"Our parents thought we were spending too much time together," Shaw said. "We thought it wasn't enough."

How did he know, at such an early age, that he'd found his soul mate?

"If you miss her the moment you drop her at the door, it's love," Shaw said.

Teen romances often founder under the weight of adult responsibilities, but not the Shaws'.

"You just have to love the other person more than yourself," he said. "Then everything is easy."

Now comes the hard part.

After decades of being the guy musicians leaned on for support, Shaw's the one doing the leaning.

"There's a lot of good people, and everybody wants to help," he said. "I'm finding out people liked me a lot more than I thought."

He's been touched to the point of tears, more than once, by the generosity of the music community, whether it's guys he hasn't seen in years donating to the GoFundMe site or old buddies like Stevens and John Collier stopping by the shop, ostensibly to have instruments repaired but mostly just to see how he's doing.

"It makes me want to cry, and not in a bad way," Shaw said. "It's hard to elaborate ... it means a lot."

For more information on the GoFundMe campaign, click here.