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Topic: billy joe shaver article (nsc) Return to archive
June 2nd, 2005 01:58 PM
mac_daddy i know alot of folks that read this board dig him... i saw this on one of the local news websites this morning, and figured i would share it...

____



A Honky-Tonk Hero
# Billy Joe Shaver, The Biggest Country Music Star You've Never Heard Of

Jun 1, 2005 7:26 pm US/Pacific
(CBS) Just about every country singer you can think of – from Waylon Jennings to Johnny Cash to Willie Nelson – has turned the songs of Billy Joe Shaver into hits. Even Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan have recorded Shaver's songs.

Those songs have an edgy, raw style that grew out of the music of Texas bars and honky-tonks, where Shaver misspent a good deal of his youth. His songs, not so much his voice, have made Shaver a honky-tonk hero, and a troubadour of the human condition.

His philosophy can be summed up in a few words: "The devil made me do it the first time; the second time, I done it on my own."

Correspondent Dan Rather and a 60 Minutes Wednesday crew went to the Piney Woods Pick’n Parlor, in the east Texas town of Minneola, to meet this unsung hero of country music.

Shaver says he's probably written between 300-400 songs: "Not that many, maybe. But they're all good."

His life is a lot like a country music ballad, and it has provided material for many of his songs. Abandoned by his parents, he was raised poor by his grandmother in Corsicana, Texas, a farm town where long freight trains roll through on their way to unknown destinations.

"When I was just a kid, I would go across the railroad tracks. There was an African-American settlement over there, the cotton-pickers, and they had a stand-up piano on one of the porches there, and I would go over and I’d listen to that bottleneck they’d play and all that," says Shaver, who ended up writing "Georgia On A Fast Train."

Sixteen different singers have recorded that song, including Johnny Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Willie Nelson and Commander Cody.

One of the things that’s hard to miss when you meet Shaver is his right hand, his picking hand. He explained that when he was 21, he worked in a sawmill in Waco, Texas. One day, his right hand slipped and a fast-whirling blade cut off two of his fingers. Shaver hoped a medical miracle would save them.

"So I just took my fingers, and drove over to the doctor’s office. He says, 'Got a little trouble there, ain’t you?' I said, 'Can you sew these fingers back on?' He said, 'What?'" says Shaver. "I said, 'I read a Japanese article that they sewed ‘em on, and they worked. He said, 'Hey, this is Waco.' You know, made that clear real quick [that he was not going to sew the fingers back on.]"

How can he play a guitar with two missing fingers? "Not very well," says Shaver, laughing. "But I do get by."

Shaver "gets by" performing his own music at least 200 nights a year. He also regularly records new CDs.

He invited 60 Minutes Wednesday to watch him work last month at a small recording studio outside Austin, Texas.

Shaver was working with singer Kimmie Rhodes on his song, “West Texas Waltz.” They worked out the lyrics, and the arrangement with the band, and then they put it all together. They got it right on the second take.

That song will be on Shaver’s new CD. His 17th CD is a testament to his enduring popularity in the world of country music.

Back in the '60s, Shaver was just another hell-raising country wannabe when he moved to Nashville. But he soon learned that his songs were more popular when others sang them.

"I thought, 'Sure, I’d make it singing.' Then I got involved with these producers, and they start telling me how to sing, and I got kind of off-key a little bit," says Shaver.

Is that when he started writing songs? "Yeah, so I decided that writing, they won't, nobody mess with me on that, because I was real good at it," says Shaver.

But he was getting nowhere, until he rode up to the house of Harlan Howard, one of country music’s most famous songwriters, on a borrowed motorcycle.

"I rolled up on that thing and I hit his front porch. And, boy, he comes bouncing out of there, and he’s a big old guy. And he said, 'What the hell’s going on? Who are you?'" says Shaver.

"I says, 'Oh, I'm Billy Joe Shaver. I'm the greatest songwriter ever lived. And he said, 'Well, I thought I was.' And he said, 'Well, park that thing and come on in.' We drank some whiskey and got to be real good friends."

With Howard’s help, Nashville’s biggest stars soon began listening to Shaver’s songs. His big break came in 1973, when Waylon Jennings recorded nine Shaver songs on one album, called "Honky Tonk Heroes." It became a big hit.

That album soon made Shaver the favorite songwriter of many country music stars. Elvis Presley even recorded one of Shaver’s songs three times.

"He has the face of a whatever, but the soul of a poet, this guy," says actor Robert Duvall, who's been friends with Shaver for more than 20 years. "I think he's one of, like Willie Nelson said, he may be the best songwriter alive."

Duvall cast Shaver in a small role in his 1997 movie, “The Apostle." Shaver, in turn, asked Duvall to appear in his "Freedom's Child" music video in 2002.

Duvall's wife, Luciana Pedraza, was so taken with Shaver that she made a documentary about him. "He will not lecture at you," she says. "He will tell you about his life stories, and you can take it or leave it, but for sure you will learn something."

Pedraza learned that Shaver is always willing to take chances, when her camera caught him trying his luck at a betting game that – on family television – can only be described as ‘Chicken Bingo.’

But the documentary also showed Shaver’s dark side, particularly his long, tortured relationship with Brenda Tindell, about whom he wrote the song “We.” They met as teenagers, married and had a son.

"We were wild and crazy. I’m telling you we’d get up in the middle of the night, get on our horses and ride bareback, naked, just haul ass all over the farm and everywhere and come back and hose down," says Shaver.

But it was no simple love story. Shaver struggled for years with drugs, alcohol and even suicide. He often left Tindell for other women. The couple divorced, re-married, and divorced again. They married for a third time when Tindell was diagnosed with cancer. She died in 1999.

Many of Shaver’s songs are laced with pain and loss, especially the loss of his son, Eddy, a promising musician in his own right. Eddy died in 2000 from a drug overdose.

Here are lyrics from a song that Shaver wrote with his son: "Nobody here will ever find me, but I will always be around. Just like the songs I leave behind me, I’m gonna live forever now."

"He was a victim of heroin abuse and crack cocaine," says Shaver, at a concert. "I thought I gave him a good look at what not to do, but then again, that ain’t no way to be a father. But I'm OK with God about it, so I reckon it’s all right. He lives here."

Shaver has never made much money from his music. But after writing hundreds of songs that others have made famous, he is finally getting some attention in his own right, from fans and from the country music industry.

Last fall, Nashville tipped its hat to Shaver by voting him into the Country Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Recognition has come late in life for Shaver, after some very tough times.

"You lost your wife, you lost your son, you lost your mother all in a year, and had a heart attack," says Rather.

"And I'm still cooking," says Shaver.

"But you've been knocked down, but not knocked out," says Rather. "Why is that?"

"I'm hard-headed, I guess," says Shaver, laughing.

But despite his losses, and the years of obscurity, Shaver says he never gives up, which is reflected in his song, "Try and Try Again."

"If at first you don’t succeed, just try and try again. If all you do is lose, you better find a way to win. If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again."


link



[Edited by mac_daddy]
June 2nd, 2005 04:02 PM
polksalad69 did anyone catch him on 60 minutes II last night?
June 2nd, 2005 04:12 PM
Larry Dallas I caught the clip on CBS last night and it was pretty good. His new studio record is coming out this fall.

I saw him here in Kentucky about a year ago and he and his band were phenomenal. He hung out after the show and signed autographs for EVERYBODY. He's the salt of the earth. Check him out if you ever get a chance.
June 2nd, 2005 04:13 PM
Joey
quote:
Larry Dallas wrote:

I caught the clip on CBS last night and it was pretty good. His new studio record is coming out this fall.




For Larry Dallas :

www.ultimateDallas.com
June 2nd, 2005 04:27 PM
Larry Dallas Didn't Morgan Britney say the same thing about the Rocks Off Board, too?

"I love that, it's really something, it's terrific"-M.B.

In keeping with Ultimate Dallas, is there any Rolling Stones "fan fiction" anywhere on this site?


June 2nd, 2005 04:39 PM
mac_daddy
quote:
Larry Dallas wrote:


In keeping with Ultimate Dallas, is there any Rolling Stones "fan fiction" anywhere on this site?






yes - the thread was called "rocks off: the novel"

it is somewhere in the archives by now...
June 2nd, 2005 04:42 PM
Nellcote Corsicana Daily Sun Shining Bright On Me....
Shaver has got IT..Unsung Hero
June 2nd, 2005 06:40 PM
polksalad69
quote:
Larry Dallas wrote:
I caught the clip on CBS last night and it was pretty good. His new studio record is coming out this fall.

I saw him here in Kentucky about a year ago and he and his band were phenomenal. He hung out after the show and signed autographs for EVERYBODY. He's the salt of the earth. Check him out if you ever get a chance.



His guitar player recently died of a heart attack.
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