Billy Joe Shaver never became a household name, but his songs -- including "Good Christian Soldier," "Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me," and "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train" -- became country standards during the '70s and his reputation among musicians and critics didn't diminish during the ensuing decades. One of the best synopses of
Shaver's upbringing is his own song, "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train." When he sings, "my grandma's old-age pension is the reason that I'm standing here today," he ain't kidding. The "good Christian raising" and "eighth grade education" -- not to mention being abandoned by his parents shortly after being born, working on his uncles' farms instead of going to high school, and losing part of his fingers during a job at a sawmill -- are all part of his life story. "I got all my country learning," he sings, "picking cotton, raising hell, and bailing hay.
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Billy Joe Shaver never became a household name, but his songs -- including "Good Christian Soldier," "Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me," and "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train" -- became country standards during the '70s and his reputation among musicians and critics didn't diminish during the ensuing decades. One of the best synopses of
Shaver's upbringing is his own song, "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train." When he sings, "my grandma's old-age pension is the reason that I'm standing here today," he ain't kidding.
The "good Christian raising" and "eighth grade education" -- not to mention being abandoned by his parents shortly after being born, working on his uncles' farms instead of going to high school, and losing part of his fingers during a job at a sawmill -- are all part of his life story. "I got all my country learning," he sings, "picking cotton, raising hell, and bailing hay."
Shaver did a quick turn in the Navy and worked a series of nowhere jobs (including the one in the sawmill) before trying his luck in Nashville. After several back and forth trips between Texas and Tennessee that gained him no response, he appeared one day in 1968 in
Bobby Bare's Nashville office, where he convinced
Bare to listen to him play.
Bare ended up giving him a writing job.
Shaver recorded one song for Mercury, "Chicken on the Ground," which went nowhere, but soon his songs began to see the light thanks to
Kris Kristofferson ("Good Christian Soldier"),
Tom T. Hall ("Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me"),
Bare ("Ride Me Down Easy"), and later,
the Allman Brothers ("Sweet Mama") and
Elvis Presley ("You Asked Me To").
Shaver's real breakthrough, though, came in 1973 when
Waylon Jennings recorded an album composed almost entirely of
Shaver's songs,
Honky Tonk Heroes -- largely considered the first true "outlaw" album.
Shaver's debut album was
Old Five and Dimers Like Me, produced by
Kristofferson and released by Monument (
Kristofferson's label) in 1973. Along with the title track, it contained the now-classic
Shaver songs "Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me" and the aforementioned "Georgia on a Fast Train."
Shaver switched to MGM a year later, but no album materialized. "Raising hell" was, as he had sung, part of his lifestyle at the time, and it kept him out of sight for a couple years. In 1976
Shaver resurfaced with When I Get My Wings on Capricorn, and followed it up a year later with Gypsy Boy. In 1978
Johnny Cash recorded "I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I'm Gonna Be a Diamond Some Day)," a song
Shaver wrote just after he chose to give up drugs and booze and turned to God for help. Religious references do crop up his songs (including "Chunk of Coal"), but they never dominate the emotions or get in the way of the earthy rhythms and melodies.
Shaver switched labels again, this time to Columbia, in 1980, and recorded three more albums during the next decade:
I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal, Billy Joe Shaver, and
Salt of the Earth. The latter was produced by
Shaver with his son, Eddy, who has played on every
Billy Joe record since
Old Chunk of Coal (he also toured in
Dwight Yoakam's band in the 1980s). After a few more years out of the spotlight,
Billy Joe returned once again in 1993, this time recording under the name
Shaver.
Tramp on Your Street, released on Zoo/Praxis, featured Eddy on lead guitar and
Billy Joe's own raspy but lovable voice, and coming out during a time when hunky hat acts where the new flavor in Nashville, it was quickly recognized as one of the strongest and hardest country records to hit the shelves in many years.
Shaver toured regularly over the next couple of years and recorded a live album for Zoo, Unshaven, in 1995, but was dropped by the label a year later. Victory followed on the New West label in 1998, with
Electric Shaver appearing a year later. The rock-oriented Earth Rolls On appeared in spring 2001. His next four albums,
Freedom's Child (2002), the emotional Billy and the Kid (which saw
Shaver singing songs written by his late son, Eddy Shaver) (2004), Real Deal (2005), and Everybody's Brother (2007), were all released on the Compadre label. 2007 also saw the release of Storyteller, a live set recorded in 1992, on Sugar Hill Records. ~ Kurt Wolff, All Music Guide
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