Billy Joe Shaver and Me…

Well, the devil made me do it the first time
The second time I done it on my own
Lord, put a handle on a simple headed man
And help me leave that black rose alone
Well the devil made that woman
Lord, she threw that pattern away
She was built for speed with the tools you need
To make a new fool every day
“Black Rose” Billy Joe Shaver
I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver
And I’m reading James Joyce
Some people they tell me
I’ve got the blood of the land in my voice
“I Feel A Change Coming On”
Bob Dylan/Robert Hunter 2009

Honky Tonk Heroes (1973) signed by Billy Joe Shaver

Them neon light nights, couldn’t stay out of fights
Keep a-haunting me in memories
Well there’s one in every crowd for crying out loud
Why was it always turning out to be me?
Where does it go? The good Lord only knows
Seems like it was just the other day
I was down at Green Gables, hawking them tables
And generally blowing all my hard earned pay
Piano rolled blues, danced holes in my shoes
There weren’t another other way to be
For lovable losers and no account boozers
And honky tonk heroes like me
“Honky Tonk Heroes” Billy Joe Shaver
From those first songs, like “I’m Just An Old Chunk Of Coal,” I was totally enamored. I understood. This is a poet. This is someone with a vision... He could be a pretty rough, blustery character at first, but later, I got to know the sweetheart.
Rodney Crowell

I’m Just An Old Chunk Of Coal… (1977) signed by Billy Joe

A songwriter’s songwriter, a roughneck’s roughneck and a hillbilly’s hillbilly, Billy Joe Shaver lived a remarkable life. Johnny Cash may have sung about shooting a man in Reno, but Billy Joe actually shot a man in the face in Waco in 2007. Billy Joe didn’t watch him die, and he didn’t go to jail either. The aggrieved recovered from his non-life threatening injuries, and Billy Joe was acquitted of all charges in 2010 in an astonishing display of Texas jurisprudence. His lawyers argued self-defense, and it probably didn't hurt that Willie Nelson and Robert Duvall showed up in court as character witnesses. Willie even wrote a song about it, "I Want My Bullet Back." Yes, even though Billy Joe wrote “Ride Me Down Easy,” his life was anything but...

Born in Corsicana, Texas in 1939, Billy Joe's father left before he was born. To make ends meet, his mother ran a rough and tumble Waco honky tonk called the Green Gables. Waylon Jennings recalled Billy's mom, "She was a good looking woman, red headed and tough, and it was a classic dive, a dance hall with sawdust on the floor, spittoons, and a piano in the corner." A young Billy Joe dutifully tagged along, learning life's lessons, the ones not readily available in books or taught in etiquette classes. Billy Joe would distill these lessons later when he wrote almost an entire album (nine of the ten songs!) on Waylon Jennings‘ 1973 masterpiece Honky Tonk Heroes. But it took awhile to get there, a circuitous route, appropriate for a gifted if grizzled songwriter.

Dropping out of school in eighth grade, Billy Joe picked cotton and had other menial jobs, then joined the US Navy at seventeen where he served without distinction. Upon discharge, he married Brenda Joyce Tindall (they would divorce twice and marry three times) and in 1962, his son John Edwin (aka Eddy) was born. Billy Joe's dreams of being a rodeo cowboy went nowhere, so he took a job at a sawmill. Unfortunately, his right hand was caught in some machinery and he almost lost four fingers while battling a serious infection. Undaunted and undeterred, Billy Joe recovered and taught himself guitar with his remaining digits and began to write songs.

He set out to find his fame and fortune in Los Angeles, however, after a couple of hours hitchhiking on a dusty interstate with no takers heading west, Billy Joe crossed the median, stuck out his mangled paw, and caught a ride east, all the way to Memphis. From there, it was a short hop to Nashville where Billy Joe hawked his songs. Waylon Jennings heard "Ride Me Down Easy" and "Willy The Wandering Gypsy And Me" and promised Billy Joe they would get together and record, but Waylon didn't share the same urgency as, perhaps, Billy Joe did.

***Billy Joe and Waylon Jennings, photo by Burton Wilson***

Waylon recalled, "I was always in a meeting, or on another call, or not in. This went on for months. He caught me one night at RCA recording. 'I got these songs,' he said, ' and if you don't listen to them, I'm going to kick your ass right in front of everybody.' He could have been killed there and then by some of my friends lining the walls, but I took Billy Joe in a back room and said, 'Hoss, you don't do things like that. I'm going to listen to one song, and if it ain't no good, I'm telling you goodbye. We ain't never talking again.' Billy played me "Old Five And Dimers," and then kept going. He had a whole sackful of songs, and by the time he ran out of breath, I wanted to record all of them."

Though Waylon's album Honky Tonk Heroes garnered critical and commercial acclaim, ushering in Outlaw Country (whatever that is!), Billy Joe's solo career never had the trajectory that it might have. Certainly, Billy Joe's rich songs resonated and were recorded by Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, Waylon and Willie, and so many others, but Billy Joe never had the renown that others enjoyed. That all began to change in the early 1990s when Billy Joe started touring and recording with his son Eddy. As talented as Billy Joe was as a songwriter, Eddy was mindblowing on guitar. He was a guitar slinger's guitar slinger, more Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan than Chet Atkins or Don Rich, and their first album recorded together as Shaver in 1993, Tramp On Your Street, is brilliant. Billy Joe reworked some of his old songs, brought Ol' Waylon in to duet on a few, and Eddy provided all the pyrotechnics necessary with his scorching guitar leads. Eddy's old beat up Fender Stratocaster was always turned up to eleven, a fitting nod to the man who tutored Eddy and gave him his first guitar, Allman Brother (now in exile) Dickey Betts. Tellingly, the Fender Strat which Eddy received from Dickey had originally belonged to Duane Allman, a fitting and appropriate peaceful transfer of power and virtuosity!

***Shaver: Tramp On Your Street (1993) signed by Billy Joe***

In 1994, I saw Shaver perform at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. They were touring in support of their recently released Tramp On Your Street and the show was revelatory. The Birchmere hadn't moved to their newer, plusher digs yet - they were still in an old converted used furniture store, and it retained a similar, decaying ambience. Picnic tables with naugahyde chairs stuck to a filthy linoleum floor, the aroma of stale beer, cheap wine and unfiltered cigarettes hung heavy in the still, acrid air. It was the perfect setting for an immersive Shaver experience and they did not disappoint. They played every song off Tramp On Your Street, and while Billy Joe sang with fervor, Eddy played with reckless abandon. Because of Billy Joe's handicap, he strummed his guitar and used it more or less as a prop. Eddy, not so much. He was as florid and as fluent as any guitarist I have ever seen. His electric guitar was beyond electric, and it was a most remarkable performance from an equally remarkable father and son.

After the show, Billy Joe came out to visit with some fans and sign some autographs. I was waiting. I was excited to meet him, said hello and shook his hand. "I heard you're a friend of Bill,” I stammered. A blank and vacant stare was returned. I knew he didn't drink, as he had said on stage earlier, "You know, Bill Wilson? I’m a friend of Bill Wilson,” I persisted, determined that my AA secret code would unlock some magical mysteries. A deep pause. "Oh yeah, I know him," he said, "but I haven't seen him around lately." Sensing my failure, I quickly switched gears, thanked him profusely for his show and songs, and asked whether Eddy was coming out to say hello. "Yeah, Eddy's backstage right now, he's not gonna be coming out, it's not really his thing," Billy Joe shrugged and smiled, as he signed some records.

They made several more albums together as Shaver and then, tragically, Eddy died on December 31, 2000 of a heroin overdose. He was only thirty-eight years old, a most unwelcome end to an artist filled with limitless promise who was also working at the time on a solo album. Billy Joe soldiered on and released ten more albums until his very recent passing. He was ornery and tough, so Texas tough that he even survived a heart attack on stage at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas seven months after Eddy passed. Billy Joe fully recovered and kept writing and recording his songs until his passing.