The Lowdown:
January 15, 2014
Billy Joe Shaver
by Jason D. 'Diesel' Hamad
Shaver breakin' out the guitar for a little chicken pickin' during his show at The Kent Stage. Photo by Jason D. 'Diesel' Hamad, No Surf Music.
“Most of my songs were written tryin’ to stay alive; the rest of ‘em were written tryin’ to get back in the house. You know how it goes.”
That’s just the kind of thing you expect to hear from Billy Joe Shaver, a man who even after decades as one of the most well respected songwriters in the world has lost none of his Corsicana-bread country-boy charm. Oh, don’t get me wrong… it’s not that he doesn’t know what a good writer he is. He’ll tell you he’s one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived (and did more than a few times in this interview), but that’s just Billy being Billy. Besides, it ain’t like he’s lying.
It was back at the end of September 2013 that we caught up with Billy outside the Kent Stage in Kent, Ohio.
“Wait ‘til they hear this album,” he said of his first new studio release in more than half a decade, scheduled for some date uncertain in 2014. “It’ll change everything, just like Honky Tonk Heroes.”
That’s a pretty bold statement, considering that particular album, released by Waylon Jennings but penned almost exclusively by Shaver, has long been considered one of the greatest albums in country music history. The same applies to the statement that this new release is “as good as Old Five and Dimers,” his own debut, which is likewise considered an outlaw country masterpiece by those in the know. Well, if Billy says it, I’ll believe it, and if the two new songs from his recent Live at Billy Bob’s Texas, “Wacko From Waco” and “The Git Go” are any indication, it’s clear that he’s still at the top of his game.
So start off 2014 by listening to a true legend. Find out just why he believes that in his fourth decade on Earth a whole gang of his best songs are still rollin’ around in his mind waiting to be turned loose upon the world, hear which young ‘uns to watch out for on the country music stage, and let him reveal the intricate mathematical relationship between music and breasts.
Well, hell, it’s Billy Joe Shaver… of course he’s bound to get us both into trouble.
So grab that chair, get out of the polar vortex and warm yourself up by the fire.
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