Billy Joe Shaver Biography

Billy Joe Shaver is a Texas country music singer and songwriter. His 1973 album Old Five and Dimers Like Me is a classic in the outlaw country genre.

Billy Joe Shaver Age

Billy Joe Shaver was born in Corsicana, Texas, the United States on August 16, 1939. He is 79 years as of 2018.

Billy Joe Shaver Family

Shaver was born in Corsicana, Texas, and raised by his mother, Victory Watson Shaver. His father Virgil had left the family before Billy Joe was born. When he was younger than 12, he spent a great deal of time with his grandmother in Corsicana so that his mother could work in Waco. He sometimes accompanied his mother to her job at a local nightclub, where he began to be exposed to country music.

Shaver’s mother remarried after his grandmother died, so he and his older sister Patricia moved in with their mother and new stepfather. After the eighth grade, he left school to help his uncles pick cotton but occasionally returned to school to play sports.

Billy Joe Shaver Wife

After he was discharged from the U.S. Navy, he met and married Brenda Joyce Tindell. They had one son, John Edwin, known as Eddy, born in 1962. The two divorced and remarried several times. He lost his wife and mother to cancer in 1999.

Additionally, he lost his son and longtime guitarist Eddy, who died at age 38 of a heroin overdose on December 31, 2000. Folk country artist Todd Snider wrote and dedicated his song Waco Moon to Eddy. Shaver nearly died following a heart attack on stage during an Independence Day show at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas. After successful heart surgery, Shaver came back to release Freedom’s Child in 2002. Currently, he resides in Waco, Texas.

Billy Joe Shaver Career

Shaver joined the U.S. Navy on his seventeenth birthday. Upon his discharge, he worked a series of dead-end jobs, including trying to be a rodeo cowboy. He took a job at a lumber mill to make ends meet. One day his right hand (his dominant hand) became caught in the machinery, and he lost the better part of two fingers and contracted a serious infection. He eventually recovered and taught himself to play the guitar without those missing fingers.

Shaver set out to hitchhike to Los Angeles, California. He could not get a ride west, so he went to the other side of the highway and headed east, accompanying a man who dropped him off just outside Memphis, Tennessee. The next ride brought him to Nashville, where he found a job as a songwriter for $50 per week. His work came to the attention of Waylon Jennings, who filled most of his album Honky Tonk Heroes with Shaver’s songs. Other artists, including Elvis Presley and Kris Kristofferson, began to record Shaver’s music. This led to his own record deal.

The first few recording companies he signed with soon folded. He was never able to gain widespread recognition as a singer, although he never stopped recording his own music. On his records, he has been accompanied by other major rock and country music musicians like Willie Nelson, Nanci Griffith, Chuck Leavell and Dickey Betts (of the Allman Brothers), Charlie Daniels, Flaco Jiménez, and Al Kooper.

In 1999, he performed at the Grand Ole Opry. In November 2005, he performed on the CMT Outlaws 2005. Again in 2006, Shaver was inducted in the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. He later served as spiritual advisor to Texas independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. For his efforts, the Americana Music Convention awarded him their Lifetime Achievement Award in Songwriting.

Bob Dylan mentioned Shaver in his song “I Feel a Change Comin’ On” (Bob Dylan and Robert Hunter) on the album, Together Through Life (2009) – “I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver, And I’m reading James Joyce”. He is also the “hero” of the song, “Wish I Could Write Like Billy Joe” on the album “Stormy Love” by Bugs Henderson.

Shaver sings the themes to the Adult Swim Television show, Squidbillies. The opening themes, collectively called “Warrior Man”, are only a stanza long and end with a sotto voce spoken word portion.

Acting Career

Shaver took a part in the movie The Apostle, playing opposite Robert Duvall in 1996. He had additional speaking roles in the Duvall film Secondhand Lions (2003) and in The Wendell Baker Story (2005).

In 2004, a documentary of his life, A Portrait of Billy Joe was released. The documentary was directed by Luciana Pedraza. In 2006, a documentary of a concert, Billy Joe Shaver – North Carolina 2006 was released on YouTube along with a limited number of DVDs. The documentary was directed by Guy Schwartz, whom Eddie Shaver listed as a musical mentor. It was shot at The Stevens Center at University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC.

In 2008, he co-starred with Bill Engvall and Billy Ray Cyrus in the made for TV USA Network Movie, Bait Shop. In 2016, he had a cameo in the TV series Still the King, also alongside Cyrus.

Comedian Norm Macdonald is an avid Shaver fan and has occasionally praised his songwriting on his podcast Norm Macdonald Live. In 2018, Shaver appeared as a guest on Macdonald’s Netflix program Norm Macdonald Has a Show.

Controversy; Shooting in Lorena, Texas

On April 2, 2007, police in Lorena, Texas, issued two arrest warrants for Shaver on charges of aggravated assault and possessing a firearm in a prohibited place. This was in connection with an incident outside a tavern, Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon in Lorena two days previously, on March 31, in which Shaver shot a man, Billy Bryant Coker, in the face with a handgun. Coker’s injuries, however, were not reported as life-threatening.

Witnesses interviewed by police report hearing Shaver say “where do you want it?” and then, after the shot was fired, “Tell me you are sorry” and “No one tells me to shut up.” Coker told police the attack was unprovoked. Shaver’s attorney declared that Shaver had shot Coker “in self-defense” after Coker threatened Shaver with a knife.

Shaver turned himself in at McLennan County Jail in Waco, Texas on Tuesday, April 3. He was later released after an hour on $50,000 bond.

He was acquitted in a Waco court on April 9, 2010, after testifying that he acted in self-defense.

The Texas-based country musician, Dale Watson, wrote a song about the incident titled “Where Do You Want It?”. The song has been recorded by Whitey Morgan and the 78’s and appears on their self-titled sophomore album, released via Bloodshot Records

Billy Joe Shaver Net Worth

Shaver is an American country music singer and songwriter who has a net worth of $3 million.

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