11 questions for Billy Joe

Shaver

I’ve spoken to Jesus, I’ve hollered at God, and I’ve sung songs with Taj Mahal. But I’ve never been so awe-struck and nervous as I was when Billy Joe Shaver’s cell phone number came across my desk with a note that said “12:30 Friday.” The man Willie Nelson calls the greatest songwriter in the world was getting his veins cleaned while he talked to me from Texas. It’s something he has done once a month since his heart attack on stage at The Green Hall, the oldest Honky Tonk in Texas. While Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Tom T. Hall have all given Shaver as much praise and admiration as any man could stand, it seems so dark of the world to have offered him so little. When his son died (the same year as his wife and his mother, mind you), Willie Nelson came forward to pay for his funeral. Despite writing whole albums full of some of the greatest country songs in the world (“Old Chunk of Coal,” “Honky Tonk Heroes,” “Leaving Georgia on A Fast Train”), Shaver has never accumulated much wealth, and the IRS has chased him time and time again trying to figure out why. Yet, the man who could be considered the Saint of Hard Knocks has about as much faith in the world as any I’ve ever met. He mentions grace and God often and gathers strength from all of the world around him. More popular now than ever, Shaver was recently featured on “60 Minutes,” and National Public Radio, and he will be sitting down for a set at the newly opened Hummingbird on Saturday, July 30th as a part of Bragg Jam.

1. I recently heard that your father tried to kill your mother while you were in the womb, almost robbing the world of Billy Joe Shaver. Do you believe in Destiny?

BJS: Yeah, they had a rough time with each other. I don’t know if I believe in Destiny or not. I still feel like I don’t seem to fit anywhere, but I know that I’m real good at what I do, you know. I do work hard, and I do good. I’ve mastered this stuff. I enjoy writing. It’s really the cheapest psychiatry there is.

2. As far as Destiny goes, stories suggest you always led it around by the neck?

BJS: Yeah, I guess I’ve always done pretty much what I damn well wanted to. Made my own damn way. But lately, I’ve gotten a lot more popular than usual. I find myself not being able to do the things that I used to. I’m much more of a “personality” now than I ever used to be. More people recognize me, so more people watch me. I love it though. If people like my work then I really don’t care if they like me or not.

3. Can you tell me the story of how you got Waylon Jennings to record your songs?

BJS: (laughs) I had met Waylon at the first Fourth of July picnic Willie had here in Texas. We were all in a trailer passing around the guitar, and he come bustin’ out. I was an old cowboy, you know, and he said, “I got to do that song.” And I said, “Okay, you sure can.” He tells me to bring it up to Nashville and I’ll do a whole album and asks me how many more cowboy songs I had. I told him I had a whole sackful. And so I went up to Nashville and chased him around for about six months. I had to take jobs washing dishes and all kind of stuff. Finally caught him one night. He was dodging me was what he was doing, you see. I finally caught him one day at Studio A over at RCA. Captain Midnight, an old disc jockey friend of mine, let me in the back door. The walls was lined with people. They all knew Waylon was going to do something. They didn’t know when or what. There were groupies, and god knows what all over. I wasn’t supposed to be there. He gave Captain Midnight a hundred dollar bill and told him to tell me to take it and leave. I told Midnight to take it back to him and tell him to stick it where the sun don’t shine. Midnight probably just stuck it in his pocket, but he told Waylon what I said, and Waylon came out and glared at me and said, “What do you want Hoss?” I told him I had come there for him to listen to my songs, and if he didn’t, that I was going to whoop his ass in front of God and everybody. He believed me too. But the bikers that was around him didn’t and here they come to break me in two, you know. But he stopped em.’ He brought me in the room and said, “Look, I’ll listen to some songs. If I don’t like it, you walk out of the room and don’t come back.” I sang him “Honky Tonk Heroes,” “Old Five and Dimers,” and so on. Next thing I know, he was clearing the room out, bringin’ his own band in there and he really stuck his neck out. He did my songs even though they were really raw and different. I was so thankful he did my songs – they were so much bigger than I was. I could never deliver them like he could. He is the best singer that ever lived, in my mind. Incredible range. We argued the whole way through it, but it worked out. It changed everything. Chet Atkins and them had a fit. They didn’t want him to do it. It really helped Nashville though.

4. Bragg Jam on July 30^th won’t be the first time you’ve been to Macon. Can you tell me about your days at Capricorn and here in Macon?

BJS: Hell, I’ve been to jail in Macon with Dickey Betts before. We were being reckless, fighting, causing trouble. We were running over parking meters in his big ol’ truck. You know, he had one of them trucks with the big ol’ bumpers on the front. They throwed us in jail. We got in there and figured we’d sing our way out like Jimmy Rogers. They guy came back there and said, “I was going to let y’all assholes out, but now I’m going to keep you in. I ain’t never heard nothing so bad in my life.” He’s good folks, ol’ Dickey. I did a couple of albums on Capricorn, then they shut down. First I did Monument records and they shut down, then MGM and they shut down, then Capricorn and they shut down, then CBS and they shut down. No wonder people quit giving me record deals. I love Phil [Walden] though, he’s a great guy. I love Phil. I heard a guy tell Phil once that he paid his people too much. He said, “Phil you pay these musicians too much money. You treat them like superstars.” Phil told him that if you treat them like superstars, they’ll become superstars. I thought that was the greatest thing. I love Macon, though. I’m so happy we’re coming to play there. You know, Little Richard got started in Macon. I always thought it was so funny that he used to say he’d be washing dishes and he got all his beats from those trains that used to pass by in Macon.

5. Compared to when you were broke, wild and busted with nothing to lose, how does the process of songwriting change as you get older, more stable and more successful?

BJS: Not a bit. It hasn’t changed. I don’t really have a process. It always seems like it jumps up and gets me. I’ve always done it because I enjoy it. I’ve done it as a hobby, and I still do it as a hobby. I love doing it. I remember all my songs. I’ve always thought if you tell a lie you can’t remember it, but if you tell the truth, it will always be on your mind because it will stay the same. All my songs are my truth. They are what I’ve lived. What I’ve learned.

6. Texas music is widely considered as its own genre. How would you define “Texas Music”?

BJS: It’s actually plays off that Southern Rock. It’s just got a little more kick to it, you know. We are just so used to playing it in places where people are talking so loud you can’t hear yourself. You have to put a little kick to it. Southern Rock is great – I love it.

7. What’s life on the road with Billy Joe Shaver like these days?

BJS: You’d be surprised.

8. I know everyone wants to hear a wild and crazy Billy Joe Shaver honky tonk story – got any good one’s we haven’t heard left?

BJS: They’s a heap of them. That Dickey story was pretty good. I remember one time when me and Tom T. Hall went down to Florida, or where the Suwannee River is, where that Stephen Foster used to live. We went down there to his museum, and you could look through the glass and see the last piece Foster was working on. The first two lines were the same two lines I had just used in a song I was writing. I had never seen them before. It was so dog gone strange, you know. “The Autumn leaves were falling and the winter winds were calling.” That was all he had, you know. But I had written (and here Billy Joe Shaver sings to me):

The autumn leaves were falling,

And the winter winds were calling,

And the southbound geese were chasing summer pines.

I was hungry, mean and slender, and as well as I can remember,

Searching for a place in life I could call mine.

Yesterday, if tomorrow was today,

Young man yesterday, if tomorrow was today . . .”

It’s a pretty good song.

9. Why do you think booze and drugs seem so prevalent among legendary musicians?

BJS: You know what, when you start making money. Musicians usually don’t say no to nothing. And those people are in business. The first one’s free – you know the story. They know right where to go to get an easy mark. And you know what? All the drugs I’ve done, I wish to God I hadn’t. It knocked me out of a lot. I didn’t produce as much. I was having too much fun, I guess.

10. You are widely considered one of the greatest, if not THE greatest songwriters to ever live. Yet throughout your career, you’ve thought about doing other things. Is retirement anywhere nearby in Billy Joe Shaver’s future?

BJS: I wouldn’t know where to go to retire. Who do you go to and say, “Hey, take this watch and stow it.” The gold watch. Naw, I don’t know where you’d go to do it. I know Dickey and that bunch, they ain’t ever going to quit. We’ll all bop ‘til we drop, I guess.

11. Who are you listening to right now?

BJS: I really don’t listen to very many people. I’m in a real good spot with my writing, and I don’t read or watch TV. I don’t like things cluttering my head, you know. I’m going to stick with what’s working good. Maybe it’s not good for most, but it’s good for me.