Thirty-two years have passed since Billy Joe Shaver helped spark the “outlaw” country music movement with his “Old Five and Dimers Like Me.”
A presence in American roots music ever since (“Georgia on a Fast Train,” “Texas Up Here Tennessee,” “Honky Tonk Heroes”), Shaver has had his ups and downs, personally as well as professionally. Through it all – the deaths of his mother and wife within three months of each other in 1999, his son’s fatal drug overdose on New Year’s Eve day 2000, his own heart attack on July 4, 2001 – Shaver has continued to write and sing his music.
“I’ve hit a few bumps in the road,” he said. “Most of my life it’s been trying to dig myself out of a hole.” Shaver, who calls himself “just an old cowboy,” has one response to life: to work.
“I jump back on the road as soon as I can,” he said. “It’s been best for me throughout life to get back on the horse.
“Other people’s got the same kind of problems. Nobody’s being singled out, you know.”
So, with a plate in his neck and a four-way bypass in his chest, Shaver, 66, is on the road, traveling with his reunited Diamondback band, promoting a new album, due Sept. 20.
“I’ve got one foot on the grave and the other on a ‘nanner peel. But I’m the real deal,” goes a verse in the title song.
The album – 17 cuts, including the bonus track “Feliz Navidad” with Flaco Jimenez – is as good as anything Shaver has done. Several tracks feature guest artists, including “West Texas Waltz” with Kimmie Rhodes, “Valentine” with Nanci Griffith and two other songs that ring of autobiography: “Slim Chance and the Can’t Hardly Playboys” featuring Kevin Fowler, and “Live Forever” with Big & Rich.
“You asked me if I have one favorite song, and I can’t really say I do. I’ve always been partial to ‘Old Five and Dimers,’ and I love ‘Live Forever’ now, but … songs are like your children. You love the buck-toothed ones as much as the others.”
