Like Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, and Jimmie Rodgers, Billy
Joe has lived the songs he sings--when it's about love, he's
embraced it; when it's about grief, he's writhed in it; and
when it's about screwing-up, well, Lord knows he's done it.
When Shaver kicks his to-the-bone tales back our way, they
smack of irrefutable truth--a truth that's delivered with
simple, poetic grace.
Billy Joe's never been a stranger to hard knocks (many, to
be sure, self-inflicted), but the past few years have been
brutal. Following the loss of his wife and his mother less
than a month apart to cancer, he--with the aid of his guitarist
son Eddy--wrote and recorded The Earth Rolls On, an extraordinarily
gripping exploration of guilt, regret, devotion, love and
redemption that was roundly acclaimed as one of 2001's finest
works.
But before that disc could even hit the shelves, Eddy succumbed
to his long battle with drugs, fatally overdosing early in
the morning of December 31st, 2000. Deprived of his family
and numb with grief, Billy Joe carried on with all he had
left--his music.
Through the first half of 2001, an ailing, hard-traveling
Shaver contended with (and ignored) heart and health problems,
the neglect of which culminated in a heart attack on-stage
at a July 4th show at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas.
"To tell you the truth, I didn't really care if I died,"
Billy Joe admits. A friend drove him back home to Waco where,
when told he had a mere 5% blood-flow entering his heart,
Shaver finally submitted to quadruple bypass surgery to clear
his arteries.
"I guess I should have gone then," he says looking
back, "but there's obviously some reason why I'm still
here."
Blessed with rejuvenated health and a renewed sense of purpose,
the blue-collar troubadour has since recorded the brand-new
Freedom's Child for Houston-based Compadre Records. Yet another
powerhouse collection of correspondence from the trenches
of life, the disc presents more than a dozen new Shaver originals
that stand as some of the most spirited and affecting compositions
of his Herculean career.
"Writing's the cheapest psychiatrist there is,"
swears the ol' five-and-dimer. "The songs give me comfort."
For Freedom's Child, Billy Joe reunited with legendary producer
R.S. Field (Allison Moorer, Sonny Landreth, John Mayall, Todd
Snider), who had helped make Shaver's 1993 album Tramp On
Your Street one of the very best of his sterling career. Accompanied
by a hand-picked studio band of gutbucket musicians that includes
guitarists Jamie Hartford and Will Kimbrough, drummer Jimmy
Lester, and bassists Keith Christopher and Dave Roe (BR549),
the battle-scarred outlaw returns at the very top of his game.
"We worked hard in the studio," says Shaver, "and
the songs came fast this time."
"Freedom's Child" is a muscular, accomplished romp
down old rails on a well-oiled, reconditioned human-freight
train. From the stompin' giddy-up of the title song to the
driving "Deja Blues" to the chicka-boom Johnny Cash
tribute of "That's Why the Man in Black Sings the Blues"
and beyond, Billy Joe & company combine masterful command
with new-born freshness.
You'll revel in the gentle benediction of "Hold On To
Yours (And I'll Hold On To Mine)," add tears to your
beer on "Drinkin' Back," go rubber-legged as Shaver
conjures Jerry Lee Lewis with the randy "That's What
She Said Last Night," two-step to the swinging re-make
of "Good Ol' U.S.A." ("There ain't no 'bad'
in that song," explains Billy Joe), choogle along to
the back-porch, Creedence kick of "Corsicana Daily Sun,"
and just flat-out flip yer wig to the mad-cap "Wild Cow
Gravy." Suffice to say, there ain't a runt in the litter.
From the sublime to the silly, Freedom's Child finds Billy
Joe Shaver flaunting his unsurpassed mastery of a full spectrum
of Southern musical influences--a mastery attained the old-fashioned
way...
Born dirt-poor in Corsicana, Texas in 1939, Billy Joe witnessed
a mesmerizing Hank Williams concert in the late-'40s, and
although he would take a few detours along the way, he sensed
early on that his salvation would lie in country music. Following
an ill-advised stint in the Navy (he was honorably discharged
after fighting with an out-of-uniform officer), a sawmill
accident claimed most of the fingers on his right hand and
Shaver's days of manual labor were over.
The handwriting was on the wall--it was time to reconcile
himself to his poetic talents, and it was time to buckle down
and learn how to play guitar.
In 1966, Billy Joe hitched a ride on a cantaloupe truck to
Nashville, where he eventually landed a $50-a-week job writing
songs for Bobby Bare's publishing company. Combining a remarkable
gift for penning unforgettable, character-driven songs with
an unbridled, hell-bent personality/lifestyle that defied
fiction, Shaver soon became a legendary figure in the '70s
Outlaw country movement.
A staunch individualist known for shooting from the hip,
Shaver quickly became the songwriters' songwriter--he wrote
90% of Waylon Jennings' 1973 landmark Honky Tonk Heroes album,
released three fine solo albums in the '70s (Old Five And
Dimers Like Me {produced by Kris Kristofferson}, When I Get
My Wings and Gypsy Boy) and churned out a seemingly endless
string of priceless songs that included "Ride Me Down
Easy" and "Restless Wind" (Bobby Bare), "Old
Five & Dimers Like Me" (Bob Dylan), "(Just Because)
You Ask Me To" (Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings), "I
Couldn't Be Me Without You" (Johnny Rodriguez), "Sweet
Mama" (Allman Brothers), "Good Christian Soldier"
(Kristofferson), and more.
But even as his professional profile was soaring, Shaver's
personal life--dogged by drink and drugs--hit rock bottom.
"I was in terrible shape," he recently told the
Houston Press, "and that was when I went up on the mountain
out there and got right with God. I was comin' down this big
cliff in the middle of the night, and He just gave me half
of that song 'Old Chunk of Coal.'"
The song would prove to be the biggest of Shaver's career
to date, but the 1980s would be a time of transition and readjustment.
He recorded I'm Just An Old Chunk Of Coal and Billy Joe Shaver
for Columbia, but when his last album for the label--1987's
Salt of the Earth --failed to sell in substantial numbers,
Shaver took it as a sign.
Teaming up with his son Eddy, Shaver forged a mercurial hybrid
that spot-welded Eddy's blistering electric guitar licks to
the old man's earthy honky-tonk, and the duo set out on a
non-stop club tour that would span the balance of the '90s.
Beginning with 1993's R.S. Field-produced Tramp On Your Street
(a record that re-established Billy Joe's position as an incomparable
singer, songwriter, and performer), the two unleashed a string
of stellar recordings that included Unshaven: Shaver Live
At Smith's Olde Bar, Highway of Life, Victory, Electric Shaver
and, finally, the tragic/mythic The Earth Rolls On.
Which brings us back again to the here and now. The glorious,
insightful tunes that make up Freedom's Child simultaneously
attest to the cold, hard truth of its predecessor's title
while triumphing--once again--over the bitterest realities
that Life can dish out.
Billy Joe Shaver songs are the real-est of real deals. They
don't mince words, and they don't sugarcoat the truth. Funny
or melancholy, celebratory or mournful--Shaver's songs zero
in on the heart of the matter, which is--after all--why they
matter to the heart.
Tickets
On Sale Now!
frontgatetickets.com
( Click on November 13 calendar date to purchase tickets)
