Billy Joe Shaver Will Be Long In The Tooth

Posted on May 24, 2014 in New Releases

Billy Joe Shaver’s new album

Produced by Ray Kennedy and Gary Nicholson, album features guests Willie Nelson,
Leon Russell, Tony Joe White, Shawn Camp, Jedd Hughes, Joel Guzman and more.

The first thing I want to say about Billy Joe Shaver is who has covered his songs.  This is a list I got from his website (under the beautifully titled tab Owed To Billie Joe), which I repeat in full, for dramatic effect.

He may not be a household name but Billy Joe Shaver’s songs are all-pervasive.

Long in the Tooth, Shaver’s new album is set for an August 5 2014 release on Lightning Rod Records through Thirty Tigers. “Each song is different with different beats and different kinds of music,” he says. “I even have one rap song. The titles are all so catchy like “It’s Hard to Be an Outlaw” (see below for a link) and “The Git Go”. Those are pretty hard to beat. Songwriting is gut wrenching, but if you dig down and write real honest you’ll find something real great.  I believe everybody should write. It’s the cheapest psychiatrist there is and, God knows, I still need one”.

Long in the Tooth is said to spotlight all the highs, lows and in-betweens from Shaver’s storied career, an evolving narrative never short on colour.  “The record’s about me,” says Shaver, who turns 75 years old in August.  “I’ve written a lot of great songs and I’m still writing great songs, but I felt neglected.  I have been, actually.  The reluctance to play old people’s music is as bad as it was to play young people’s music.  I think it should level out where everyone can hear good art, but it seems like radio doesn’t play older people’s music.  Man, it’s like throwing out the Mona Lisa.  I don’t understand, but I’m just so proud of Long in the Tooth.  This record will be a gigantic step”.

Honky Tonk Heroes was the record that skyrocketed Shaver into public consciousness four decades ago.  Waylon Jennings’ landmark album delivered Shaver-written classics practically every measure: “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” (covered also by Bob Dylan), “Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me,” “Ride Me Down Easy,” the title track and the Top 10 hit “You Asked Me To.”  In fact, ten of the album’s eleven songs were written or co-written by Shaver.  It established him as a singular songwriter, a man whose earthy poetry resonates across the board. He’s doubled down ever since.

“That’s kind of like my trophies,” Shaver admits.  “Instead of getting CMA Awards, that means a whole lot more to me.  When you write songs, and you write good songs, people will always remember you.  Words will always outlive us.  And if your name is attached to those words, you’re gonna live forever.”

The Corsicana, Texas native’s Lone Star State roots run deep: His great-great-great grandfather, Revolutionary War veteran Evan Thomas Watson, was one of the founders of the Texas Republic.  Shaver was raised in hardscrabble circumstances by his grandmother, working on farms and selling newspapers on the street in his youth.  He sang and made up songs “since I could talk,” and was inspired in his childhood to keep at it after sneaking out of home one night to catch a country music show where he heard Hank Williams early in his career.

He drew a connection between country and blues from an uncle’s record collection and the neighboring African-American farm workers’ music.  “Country music is really close to being the blues, and rock ’n’ roll ain’t nothing but the blues with a beat.  That’s about it,” he says.  Shaver was given a Gene Autry guitar by his grandmother at age eleven and began playing until his stepfather gave it away a few years later as payment for yard work.  Following a brief stint in the Navy at age sixteen, a stab at professional rodeo, and the aforementioned incident losing parts of his fingers, Shaver took up playing guitar again and devoted himself to songwriting.

He hitchhiked to Nashville in 1965 and eventually earned a $50-a-week writer’s deal with Bobby Bare’s publishing company.  Soon Jennings picked up those Shaver classics for Honk Tonk Heroes.  As The Washington Post notes, “When the country outlaws were collecting their holy writings, Billy Joe Shaver was carving out Exodus.”  He followed his debut on the Monument label with three albums on Capricorn Records and two on Columbia through 1987, seeing little commercial success with his recordings but winning rave reviews and the admiration of his musical peers.

In 1993, he broke through with new generations and broader audiences as the currently booming Americana and Texas roots music and singer-songwriter scenes were gathering steam with the acclaimed Tramp On Your Street, united with his late guitar-playing son Eddy as simply Shaver.  He has since issued eleven more independent albums, was honored with the first Americana Music Award for Lifetime Achievement in Songwriting in 2002, and inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.

As his well-deserved public recognition came in the 1990s, Shaver was cast by his friend and fan Robert Duvall in his acclaimed 1996 film The Apostle, and has since played parts in three other theatrical and TV movies.  He was the subject of a 2004 documentary produced by Duvall, A Portrait of Billy Joe, and published his autobiography, Honky Tonk Hero, the following year.  He also sings the themes to the Adult Swim television show Squidbillies (!!) and “Live Forever” was included in the award-winning hit movie Crazy Heart as its end-credit song.

With these accomplishments behind him, Shaver has been thinking his creative well finally dried up.  After all, he hasn’t released an album with new songs in six years.  “I didn’t think I had another hope in the world of doing another studio album,” Shaver says.  “Then Todd Snider encouraged me to come up to Nashville and I listened.  I knew if I didn’t come out with new songs, it wouldn’t be right.  I’ve promised hundreds of critics that I would.  So, I just buckled down and got the new songs together.  Sure enough, it turned out great.”

On September 28 2014, Shaver and many of his musical friends and fans will celebrate his 75th birthday with a concert at the Paramount Theater in Austin, Texas.

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Billy Joe Shaver’s new album