{"id":2232,"date":"2011-05-04T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/216.71.127.204\/wordpress\/?p=2232"},"modified":"2015-10-20T19:12:57","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T19:12:57","slug":"interview-with-billy-joe-shaver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/2011\/05\/04\/interview-with-billy-joe-shaver\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Billy Joe Shaver"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Written by Matt Matthews <\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
May 04, 2011 at 12:00 AM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Image\"On May 4, 2011 Houston Music Review\u2019s Matt Matthews caught up to Corsicana native and songwriting legend Billy Joe Shaver prior to his performance at Main Street Crossing in Tomball, TX.\u00a0 The Texas music icon turns 72 in August and despite overwhelming adversity in the past decade or so including losing his mother, wife and son, guitarist Eddie Shaver, all in the span of a year and the highly publicized attempted murder trial and subsequent acquittal last year stemming for a bar room shooting incident outside Waco, BJS has showed no signs of slowing down.\u00a0 Looking fit and ready to perform in his trademark denim pearl snap shirt and weather beaten straw hat, Billy Joe perched himself on the arm of\u00a0 sofa and looked as comfortable as if he were on his own back porch.<\/p>\n

MM: Welcome to Tomball, by the way.<\/p>\n

BJS: It\u2019s good to be here.<\/p>\n

MM: You\u2019ve been in this business a long time.\u00a0 How long exactly have you been doing this professionally?<\/p>\n

BJS: Well, I really never have been doing it professionally; it\u2019s more of a labor of love.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t ever think I\u2019d make any money at it.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t intend to, but looks like I\u2019m gonna make a living, ya know.\u00a0 Not settin\u2019 the world on fire, but as long as I make it to the next gig, it\u2019s fine with me. And I started singing and writtin songs at about 8 (years old).\u00a0 As a matter of fact I was 8 years old when I sold papers there on the corner in Corsicana, Texas. (Starts singing) \u201cPaper here, Corsicana Daily Sun\u201d<\/p>\n

MM: Singing to sell the paper<\/p>\n

BJS: (laughs) Yeah\u2026 So a lot of times they just bought them to keep me shut up. Naw but, this is something I fell back on when I lost my fingers when I was 21, in a sawmill accident.\u00a0 I just fell back on music.\u00a0 A lot of people fall back on their other jobs, but this happened this way.<\/p>\n

MM: What year was that?<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 I was about 21, and I went to gather a bunch of poems and things I had together, making sure that I had what I had because I knew I was good.\u00a0 I always knew that.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t know what I thought I\u2019d do with it. But I got to reading the Bible, and I got to thinking about it, and when this happened (raises right hand) I said, \u201cGod I\u2019ll do it. I\u2019ll do what I\u2019m supposed to do\u201d and that\u2019s make music and sing, stuff like that.\u00a0 What I was talented\u2026 the gift he gave me.\u00a0 So I started doing that, I was in my 30\u2019s before I started really kinda getting people paying much attention to me.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 That \u201873 album from Waylon, (Honky-Tonk Heroes)<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 Well, yeah that.\u00a0 In the 60\u2019s I wrote a bunch of really good songs.\u00a0 Like, oh, let\u2019s see\u2026 When The Word Was Thunderbird is a song I wrote back in \u201866. It didn\u2019t get published until \u201869, that\u2019s when I met Bobby Bare.\u00a0 A lot of those things, I wrote way back yonder.\u00a0 Bobby was so cheap, he didn\u2019t wanna publish them, he didn\u2019t wasn\u2019t to have them copyrighted until we got them recorded.\u00a0 And I had boocoos of songs, and still do. I have probably over 500 songs at least. I never thought about counting them.\u00a0 I go back now even, and if I think I hadn\u2019t written good enough, actually I always know I will write good.\u00a0 I\u2019m not bragging, I\u2019m just telling you the truth.\u00a0 But when I go to do an album, I can always go back and I\u2019ll find something to fit in with that, ya know, way back yonder somewhere.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost like talking to another person.\u00a0 Ya know, it\u2019s like I don\u2019t co-write a lot. But, I wind up a lot of times having an idea and going ahead and working on it, then somebody will come along, a friend, and say \u201cLemme help you with it\u201d.\u00a0 Then I wind up writing the whole thing and giving them half. (Laughs)<\/p>\n

MM: Well, let me ask you about that? Because, that \u201873 album, a lot of people say, with that, you kind of helped develop the Outlaw Sound, what was called the Outlaw movement back then.<\/p>\n

GJS\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, yeah.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 It\u2019s kind of like what is happening these days. It\u2019s sort of the same thing.\u00a0 Can you compare the two times?<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 Kinda sort of.\u00a0 In a way, there\u2019s a lot of people really TRYING to be that way.\u00a0 We were just naturally that way.\u00a0 Waylon was that way.\u00a0 He was right on\u2026 we were parallel. We just\u2026 it\u2019s just the way we were.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the way we grew up.\u00a0 I just happened to be in touch with the greatest singer, I thought, that ever lived.\u00a0 And still think that. Because man, if you went to one of his live shows you\u2019d see he had such a range. He can do anything.\u00a0 Just amazing, amazing guy.\u00a0 I can sing almost as good as him now. I don\u2019t know, ever once in a while I might sing as good as he did.\u00a0 Every once in a while. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 You work with some of the young guys these days, Todd Snider\u2026<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 Yeah<\/p>\n

MM:\u2026 Kevin Fowler with the Cant Hardly Playboy thing.<\/p>\n

BJS: Yeah<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 Do you have a favorite guy?<\/p>\n

BJS: I\u2019ve always liked Todd Snider. But he\u2019s got his own thing.\u00a0 He\u2019s just that dang good.\u00a0 And he and I just get along so good.\u00a0 We get in trouble just about every time we get together. (Laughs) Other then that, he\u2019s a great writer.\u00a0 He tells it like it is.\u00a0 He\u2019s a good fella.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 Are you a big fan of Jackson Taylor?<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 Oh yeah love Jackson, yeah man yeah.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 One of the nicest guys but\u2026<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 \u2026you don\u2019t wanna get him mad.\u00a0 He was a wrestler, man, in school. I think he was an All American or something.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"MM:\u00a0 He may have been born about 30 years too late.
\nBJS: (Laughs) If he would have been around it would have changed everything.\u00a0 I think the world of Jackson.\u00a0 He\u2019s a really great talent.\u00a0 Great writer, great singer, entertainer.\u00a0 Just a good ol\u2019 boy.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You talked about your song writing talent being God given. A lot of your songs are obviously filtered through so much tragedy and strife in your life.\u00a0 Can you find some kind of balance in that?<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 Well, you know, I just write them, and somehow or another \u2026 you look at every song I got and you see some kind of spiritualism seeping in there.\u00a0 And that\u2019s just the way I am.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 It seems like you peel back the dark part of the tragedy and sort of shine a light on what you can get out of it.<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 I like to make lemonade out of lemons.\u00a0 I have shirts that have a picture of my hand on them (raises right hand).\u00a0 I believe in that\u2026 I believe you take whatever it is that you think really hurt you, and spin it around a little bit and you can make it work great for you.\u00a0 Make it help you pick yourself up.<\/p>\n

MM: Let me ask you one more thing, of all the songs you\u2019ve written do you have a favorite?<\/p>\n

BJS: Boy I tell ya, it\u2019s just like having a bunch of kids, ya know.\u00a0 You love the buck toothed ones just as much as you do the others.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to say.\u00a0 The one I\u2019m singing at the time is the one I love.\u00a0 I can\u2019t really pick out one. It\u2019s like pulling your kids up and saying which kid\u2019s your favorite.\u00a0 For me it\u2019s hard.\u00a0 I can\u2019t much do that.\u00a0 But out of all of them that profoundly say things, I believe Old Five And Dimers says a lot.\u00a0 And I very seldom do that.<\/p>\n

MM: Will you do it tonight?<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 I might, because uh, the crowd seems like they might be listening.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 I\u2019ve got a request, will you do Honey Bee.<\/p>\n

BJS:\u00a0 Honey Bee, yeah, I wrote that when I was 8 years old.\u00a0 I held it back and I didn\u2019t finish it.\u00a0 It was about this girl that I liked a whole lot. And I ran by and kissed her one day and she fell in a mud puddle.\u00a0 She had on a pretty red dress and her daddy owned a grocery store.\u00a0 He run me down in his pick up truck and just beat the confound you know what out of me.\u00a0 Had knots all over my head and everything.\u00a0 I went down there to my grandma and I told her what happened.\u00a0 She grabbed me by my little old arm, drug me up there to that grocery store and she said, \u201cYou stand right here\u201d. I sat there, and she went inside.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t long before she had that man out there.\u00a0 And I said, \u201cOh God, I\u2019m gonna have to apologize to him now.\u201d And my grandma just beat the confound hell outta him.\u00a0 She was a Collins, ya know, Irish lady.\u00a0 I mean her ass, about 13 axe handles wide.\u00a0 She could sit down on a punch; I mean she beat him up real bad.\u00a0 And then she took me home and whooped me.\u00a0 She raised me until I was 12, bless her heart.<\/p>\n

MM:\u00a0 Thank you so much for spending the time<\/p>\n

Billy Joe Shaver then proceeded to put on a hell of a live show to a completely attentive audience.\u00a0 Mixing the spiritual with the raucous, Shaver kept the crowd focused for over 90 minutes.\u00a0 And yes he did perform Old Five And Dimers and yes the audience did listen.\u00a0 And are still listening to one of Texas\u2019 greatest musical treasures.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Matt Matthews May 04, 2011 at 12:00 AM On May 4, 2011 Houston Music Review\u2019s Matt Matthews caught up to Corsicana native and songwriting legend Billy Joe Shaver prior to his performance at Main Street Crossing in Tomball, TX.\u00a0 The Texas music icon turns 72 in August and despite overwhelming adversity in the… <\/p>\n

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