When I
think of Billy Joe Shaver I think of one of my favorite films,
"Tender Mercies". Robert Duvall portrayed Mac Sledge,
a gifted songwriter who wandered into the flat farm fields
of Central Texas where he was taken in by a young widow and
her son. They accepted his past, sobered him up, and introduced
him to Jesus. The story showed us the passion between a man
and his music and we watched as Duvall's character gained
the courage to step back on stage only to be confronted with
the untimely death of his only daughter.
It really
surprised me when I learned Shaver and Duvall actually met
several years after this film was shot. Shaver explained,
"He came up to me after I had played one night at the
Broken Spoke in Austin. He complimented me on my honky-tonk
sound. I said Waylon made'em sound good. He nodded and said,
'what I heard tonight was the real thing'." Robert Duvall
happened to be in town shooting "Lonesome Dove".
They remained friends and Shaver was asked to do a bit part
in Duvall's personal film, "The Apostle", where
Shaver played a recovering alcoholic and born again Christian.
Not a far stretch from Billy Joe's own experience.
Billy
Joe Shaver called me from a hotel room in Dallas where he,
Duvall, and Luciana Pedraza, an Argentina filmmaker, were
screening their new documentary "Portrait of Billy Joe."
It was on the set of "The Apostle" where Pedraza
listened to the stories Shaver was telling off camera. She
was so intrigued she started shooting video and dug deeper
into the life of the Texas songwriter.
What
she unearthed was hard to believe. Billy Joe Shaver was married
three times; each time to Brenda Tindell, a Waco hairdresser.
He's written some of the greatest songs in music, yet never
received a single award for them. He lost three fingers and
nearly his whole arm in a sawmill accident in Waco before
truly learning to play guitar. Two years ago he had a heart
attack on stage at Gruene Hall. The doctor said his heart
grew a fifth artery allowing him to live.
His father
left home the day he was born. His mother left two weeks later.
His grandmother raised him in Corsicana until she passed away
when he was 12.
In 1999,
his mother died of cancer. Two months later, his wife died
of the same disease. Shortly after he stood in a small church
in Austin called the "Promised Land". After the
sermon was finished the minister asked him what he loved most
in this world. Billy Joe replied, "My son, Eddy."
The minister looked at Eddy and asked the same question. Eddy
replied, "My father, Billy Joe." Six weeks later
Eddy died in a motel room on New Year's Eve in Waco.
I watch
the mega-stars on television and listen to them sing songs
with no connection to their own lives. Billy Joe Shaver never
fit in with this group. He was too busy drowning in the tragedy
of life.
He had
a rough childhood filled with emotional bouts and schoolyard
fistfights. An elderly English teacher threw out the first
life preserver. He explained, "She read a poem I wrote
called "Space". She told me things were going to
get tough in life, but I had something I should always fall
back on. She said it was a gift. It was the first time anyone
ever paid me any attention. I put her words in my heart. Those
words were the reason I went to Nashville."
He set
out on the back of a cantaloupe truck. In the same fashion
Kris Kristofferson landed a helicopter in Johnny Cash's front
yard to get his songs over, Billy Joe crashed a motorcycle
into Harlan Howard's front door. It worked. Howard liked his
songs and it led to a publishing deal with Bobby Bare.
One night
in Dripping Springs, Texas an unknown Shaver played a song
in front of Waylon Jennings. Waylon jokingly said, "One
day I'm gonna record an entire record of your songs."
Shaver took the promise to heart. He stalked Waylon for 6
months before busting through the doors of RCA studios in
Nashville to confront Jennings. He gave Waylon two choices.
Listen to his songs or fight him.
Jennings
opted to listen. In 1973 Waylon recorded the album, "Honky
Tonk Heroes" and nine of the ten songs were penned by
Billy Joe Shaver. The record made Jennings a star, and it
remains to this day one of the most pivotal recordings in
music history.
But the
songs weren't contrived or formulated for the success they
brought Waylon. They were mere observations from a bar brawling
Texan who remembered everything he had experienced growing
up in the Lone Star state.
Billy
Joe described, "I snuck out of my grandmother's house
barefoot one night in Corsicana when I was a little kid. I
walked 5 miles down a railroad track into downtown to the
back of the old Wonder Bread building. Homer and Jethro were
playing music on the loading dock. All of the people were
down below smoking and drinking. I shimmied up a pole so I
could see. They called a young man up to play guitar and sing
a song. The crowd turned away because they didn't know who
he was. I got down and walked right up in front of him. It
turned out the man everyone ignored was Hank Williams. Suddenly,
I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life."
As a
teenager Billy Joe was coerced by a friend to enlist in the
service. His friend never signed up and Shaver found himself
alone boarding a plane for California and Naval basic training.
By strange coincidence, Elvis Presley was on the same flight.
Shaver shook his hand but was too nervous to speak. Years
later Presley recorded one of Billy Joe's songs called, "You
asked Me To".
Shaver
said these acknowledgments mean more to him than any award
ever could. He admits when Waylon, Willie, Bob Dylan, or George
Jones records one of my songs, "Those are my Grammys."
But despite
success from songs recorded by others, Billy Joe ended up
broke during the mid-eighties from bad publishing deals and
bad habits. He returned to Texas and discovered his son Eddy
was a guitar prodigy. They rekindled their relationship and
began making music together. Their 93' release, "Tramp
on Your Street", was considered one of the year's best.
In all they collaborated on nine records.
Songs
like "Live Forever", "The Earth Rolls On",
and "Star in My Heart" proved that Billy Joe still
had the gift which sounded even better with the accompaniment
of his son.
Last
month Billy Joe made good on a promise he made to Eddy. He
finished "Billy and the Kid", a record they had
started before his son's unexpected death. The opening track
"Fame" is a soft acoustic song questioning the point
of stardom, something Shaver claims is a dream long gone for
him. At the close he sadly professes his longing for his son
and his love for his late wife.
Listening to the album, I detect one big difference between
the tragedy of Billy Joe Shaver and that of Duvall's film
character, Mac Sledge. Billy Joe Shaver has nothing left but
his music and his faith.
One of
the final scenes in "Tender Mercies" involves Duvall
tilling a garden where he vents his sorrow and frustration
to his wife. He recounts all the tragedies bestowed upon him
and he begs God to answer why he allowed all of this to happen.
Duvall claimed, "I got no answer to my prayer."
It was the defining moment of his performance and it won him
the Oscar.
If anyone
deserved to have the same prayer answered it would be Billy
Joe Shaver. But somehow Shaver doesn't leave me as empty as
Duvall's film does. His new song "Window Rock" is
about a night he spent with Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers.
There are a couple of verses that seem to shed some light.
He sings, "God, only knows why I'm still living/ Jesus
Christ is where it's at/ the spirit tapped me on the shoulder/
and he handed me my hat."
I told
him I thought it meant God wasn't ready for him and maybe
he was supposed to fall back on his gift of writing like his
English teacher told him long ago. Shaver said he never intentionally
thought about the symbolism, and then he laughingly revealed,
"The truth was Betts lured me into this Indian ritual.
The leader started giving me a hard time about a cross around
my neck. It made me so mad I told Betts I was either leaving
or gonna fight the Indian. Betts said you can't leave; we
have to stay until sunrise. The Indian came over and handed
me my hat. So I went outside and laid down in the back of
a truck and happily gazed at the stars all night."
Billy
Joe Shaver can talk about tragedy in one breath and then somehow
change your tears to laughter with the next. We both recalled
a billboard that used to sit on the side of the interstate
in Ennis, Texas. It showed a sunrise and a cross with the
words "Jesus Saves" above it. You can see it in
"Tender Mercies" in a scene where Duvall drives
his truck underneath it.
We both
agreed it served as a compass for anyone who traveled the
highway between Dallas and Corsicana during the 80's. We were
both amazed the sign stood for over twenty years. Billy Joe
Shaver, the outlaw, ended his conversation with me in a way
I did not expect. He asked me to tell my wife he was sorry
for calling so late.
I guess
it shouldn't have surprised me. He began the apologies when
my wife first answered the phone. He confessed missing my
first call when his cell phone went off during a live television
show in Dallas. "They got mad at me but I was more embarrassed
for forgetting about our interview."
His genuine
personality led me to one conclusion. Billy Joe Shaver doesn't
need to be a star. He's had one inside his heart all along.
It grows bigger when times get really tough.
Matt Webb, an Austin based author, interviewed Billy Joe Shaver
on October 12.
Photo
Caption
Billy Joe Shaver plays Saturday, November 13 at the Greenville
Municipal Auditorium. Max Stalling and Jack Ingram will also
perform. Music begins at 7:00 p.m.
Ticket
Information
Tickets are available at Cavender*s Boot City in Greenville
and online at www.frontgatetickets.com. Additional information
available at http://www.greenville-texas.com. Advance tickets
are now on sale for $15.00, $20.00 and $30.00. Tickets purchased
on the day of show are $20.00, $25.00 and $35.00. For more
information, call the Main Street Office at (903) 457-3138.
