The Undisputed Originator of Outlaw Country Music
Dressed in a faded denim jacket, shirt, jeans, and beat-up brown cowboy hat, Billy Joe Shaver strode onstage and unceremoniously dropped his jacket and plastic bottle of water in front of a monitor, waved to the crowd and launched into “Heart of Texas,” kicking off a nearly two-hour set of songs from the undisputed originator of outlaw country music.
It was equal parts revival, honky-tonk show (if you squinted, you could almost see the chicken wire stretched across the stage), and political rally. Between songs, Shaver riffed on Jesus, heartbreak, and his late son Eddy, with improvised spoken word pieces that were more akin to prayers than poetry. It was pure magic from the man Johnny Cash called his favorite songwriter, whom Willie Nelson considers an intimate friend, and whom Bob Dylan name-checked in a lyric from 2009: “I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver and I’m reading James Joyce.”
Before the show, I suspected his hit “Been to Georgia on a Fast Train” would be encore material, but he introduced it as the second song, humbly stating it was popular but he didn’t know why. For me, though, it was my introduction to Shaver, who was featured in an Oxford American magazine music issue CD back in the mid-1990s. (The song appeared on his 1973 debut, Old Five and Dimers Like Me, but this version was the one on 1993’s Tramp on Your Street.) When I heard the song back then, I knew Shaver was special. I’d heard his songs covered by other artists (most famously Waylon Jennings) but wasn’t aware of the man’s talents at performing his own music.
At age 75, after quadruple bypass heart surgery, Shaver was completely in his element, hopping around the stage, clapping out of rhythm, raising his hands aloft like a country preacher, and belting out classic songs that ranged from his debut 40 years ago to his latest release, Long in the Tooth, which is still as relevant and full of humor, grit, and honesty as anything he’s ever done.
The set drew heavily from Tramp on Your Street, the album featuring his son Eddy Shaver on blisteringly excellent guitar. The emotional heart of the show came when Shaver recited an a cappella prayer to Eddy that transitioned into “Live Forever.” Shaver obviously misses his son, who died of a heroin overdose December 31, 2000. He referred to him as not only his son but his best friend, and admonished the crowd to offer “tough love” to anyone else in the same downward spiral of drug addiction. The song itself was heartbreakingly poignant, especially the lines:
You fathers and you mothers
Be good to one another
Please try to raise your children right.
Don’t let the darkness take ‘em
Don’t make ‘em feel forsaken
Just lead ‘em safely to the light.
In that moment, the man, the performer, and the audience seemed to become one; it was no longer just a song, but a pure emotional connection between singer and audience.
Shaver at times appeared to be a country preacher, his whispy white hair flailing around, rallying the crowd that responded with frequent outbursts of “Amen, Brother!” That perhaps led one rather overzealous guy in the crowd to approach the stage and ask for a healing, to which Shaver said “I’ll come to your show…” and when the guy protested as he was being escorted away, Shaver returned with, “Smile when you say that.”
Halfway through the show, the band took a short break. Shaver held up a can of Red Bull, “the old man’s bumper jack”, while the drummer was left to fill the space with a five-minute drum solo that evolved quickly from awkwardly unexpected to awe-inspiring. Shaver has surrounded himself with some stellar musicians who can rock, with guitarist Jeremy Woodall providing sufficiently twangy Telecaster licks and impressive solos.
Shaver’s voice was surprisingly strong on such classics as “Black Rose”, “Old Chunk of Coal”, “Ride Me Down Easy”, and “Honky Tonk Heroes”, and songs from his newest release melded seamlessly, proving the man’s supreme songwriting talents.
Highlights were “That’s What She Said Last Night”, a song Shaver referred to as “the worst song I ever wrote”, but one of the best double-entrendre songs I’ve ever heard, and “People and Their Problems”, a song a fan called out as a request early on, but that Shaver only got around to late in the evening saying, “Someone requested this, and I hope I can remember – it’s an old one.” When the fan shouted out a whoop of approval, Shaver said, “That must be the guy.” Lyrics escaped him halfway through, with the crowd offering assistance – it was a touching testament to the love fans have for the man. Toward show’s end, appearing unsure of when to exit, he asked the crowd if they wanted to hear more, and then launched into “When the Word Was Thunderbird” and “Try and Try Again”, ending on a positive, uplifting note.
Nashville-based Ryan Culwell opened with an acoustic solo performance that seemed painfully distracted, and near the end of the set he attributed this to recently losing a close friend to a heroin overdose, which made the loss of Eddy Shaver all the more resonant.