(Praxis/Zoo) Sadly, one of country music's greatest songwriters of all time, Billy Joe Shaver, is hardly an instantly recognizable household name. However, though many people may not be familiar with his name, many of his songs are instantly recognizable. Though he's been recording himself for over 3 decades, it has been other artists that have brought many a Billy Joe Shaver song to the top of the charts...Ride Me Down Easy, Old Piece Of Coal, Honky Tonk Heroes, When Fallen Angels Fly, Black Rose, Georgia On A Fast Train, Live Forever, Oklahoma Wind. An impressive roster of artists have recorded Billy Joe's songs, including Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Bobby Bare, John Anderson, Asleep At The Wheel, Keith Whitley, Johnny Cash, The Highwaymen, George Jones, Elvis, Patty Loveless, Johnny Rodriguez, Marty Stuart, The Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, Commander Cody, Cory Morrow, BR-549, Rodney Hayden...as well as Tom T. Hall and Kris Kristofferson, who very rarely record songs by other writers. 

Billy Joe Shaver was born in 1939, in Corsicana, Texas and has a long and colorful history behind him.  His father left before he was born, and he and his older sister were left to be raised by their grandmother, while their mother went to Waco and worked at the Green Gables honky tonk, where they spent summers with her. He grew up dirt poor, but developed a fondness for poetry as a child, which he kept hidden, as that was considered "sissy" stuff. As he got a little older he had a couple of school teachers that recognized his talent and encouraged him to write, though he still kept it mostly to himself. He dropped out of school in the 8th grade. He was talked into signing up for the army on the buddy system by a friend, only after Billy Joe enlisted, his "buddy" didn't. Billy Joe and the military didn't quite get along, and he wound up in several scrapes, including going AWOL a few times. After a scuffle with an officer, he was finally tossed out. At age 20 he met 17 year old Brenda Tindell, fell in love, were married and had a son. (Billy Joe and Brenda would divorce and re-marry 3 times over the course of their relationship, until her passing in 1999.) He tried working conventional jobs to support his family, however, after losing several fingers in a sawmill accident, and crushing his vertebrae in a construction accident, he decided music was much safer. He wound up in Nashville, pulling a Kristofferson-like stunt to get his songs pitched, but instead of a helicopter, Billy Joe drove his motorcycle right up to Harlan Howard's front door. He then got a job working at Bobby Bare's publishing company for $50 a week, though when the hits started coming, everyone was making money except Billy Joe, due to a bad deal and a warning from someone in Nashville to leave things alone or he'd be history. When Bobby Bare sold his publishing company, somewhere along the line, all of Billy Joe's songs that hadn't been recorded wound up "lost." There is the infamous story of Waylon Jennings and his promise to record an album of Billy Joe's songs, and how he haunted Waylon until he kept his word, which ultimately happened and became Waylon's classic album Honky Tonk Heroes. He was recording his own songs, however, each time he finished one, the label wound up going out of business. So while many a Billy Joe Shaver song became a well known song after someone else recorded it, he never found commercial success himself, nor did he get rich off the songs that went on to become successful. Seemed Billy Joe just couldn't win for losing.   

Then in 1987, he teamed up with his son Eddy to record Salt Of The Earth. By this time, Eddy was considered a guitar prodigy, playing a beat up black Strat that was given to him by Duane Allman, and a Gibson 355 that was given to him by Dickey Betts. The two found a chemistry with each other, and enjoyed working together. Though he still played a lot with his father, during the late 80's and into the early 90's, Eddy also toured with Dwight Yoakam, and played on albums by Guy Clark, Waylon, and Willie Nelson. In 1993, they teamed up again, calling themselves Shaver, and released a masterpiece titled Tramp On Your Street.

Produced by RS Fields, Tramp On Your Street, and the teaming of Eddy and Billy Joe, resulted in a more raucous rocking/bluesy/country roadhouse sound, than Billy Joe's usual straightforward Texas country sound. Billy Joe's decidedly country lyrics and Texas twang kept one foot planted firmly in country, while Eddy's virtuosity and driving guitar brought rock and blues into the mix. The songs chosen for Tramp On Your Street include redone versions of a few of Billy Joe's classics, as well as new songs written for the album, many of which will be instantly recognizable from being covered by other artists. However, the addition of Eddy's masterful guitar playing, along with Billy Joe being in top vocal form, brings a new vitality to the songs, and there's nothing like hearing these chestnuts interpreted by the very person that wrote them. 

The disc opens with two outstanding duets with Waylon Jennings, the autobiographical "Heart Of Texas" about the woman back home who over the years, has come to understand and accept who her man is, and "Oklahoma Wind," the often covered, western flavored lament of the plight of the American Indian, given an even bigger boost by the stellar guitar of Eddy. 

One of Billy Joe's most often covered songs is up next, the classic "Fast Train To Georgia," which was the first song he ever wrote. This song was written after one of his AWOL episodes while in the military, and is another that's autobiographical. When he was caught, he was chained to a black man. Both men were bigoted towards the other's race, and spent most of the trip trying to do each other some harm. After a while though, they did get to talking, and realized they weren't really so different outside of their skin color, and decided what they were raised to believe made no sense. Ultimately, in the end, they became friends. This incident, Billy Joe says, changed his life, and out came this song. Here, Billy Joe and Eddy take this one on full steam ahead, with Eddy again shining on a blistering guitar solo.

"I'm Gonna Live Forever" is another that will be familiar to many, a lovely song of redemption done acoustically, with terrific harmonies by Doug & Ricky Phelps (The Kentucky Headhunters, Brother Phelps). Doug & Ricky help out again with vocals on the country-rock song of spiritual redemption, "If I Give My Soul." 

The country-blues title cut, "Tramp On Your Street," is dedicated to Hank Williams, and was inspired by the tale of a very young Billy Joe Shaver, who snuck out of his house and went down to the nearby honky tonk to listen to the music. They let the little shoeless kid inside to listen to the music. Little Billy Joe wandered up right to the front of the stage to listen to the singer that no one else was paying any attention to. The singer saw that little boy listening to him so intently when no one else was, and sang all his songs directly to him. That "singer" turned out to be Hank Williams, before he hit it big and became a star. Young Billy Joe got whupped when his grandma found out where he'd been, but it's something that Billy Joe never forgot and has carried that memory around with him ever since.

"K.A.N.D., Corsicana, Texas" is a brief "radio news clip" about our troops landing in Normandy, that goes directly into "The Good Old USA," a patriotic swing number, about living in the great USA. Billy Joe and Eddy kick things into overdrive with "The Hottest Thing In Town" a twangy, rockin', guitar driven, rave up. Another song also instantly recognizable, though as a Patty Loveless cover, is the mournful but lovely, "When Fallen Angels Fly." Here it's given a semi-acoustic, Tex-Mex treatment that gives it great poignancy. They stay on a Tex-Mex course with the infectious mid-tempo "Take A Chance On Romance," with Eddy getting in some really nice guitar licks. 

Another Billy Joe Shaver classic, that was taken to the top of the chart a decade earlier by John Anderson, and covered by countless others is reprised next, with Billy Joe's own outstanding version of "Old Chunk Of Coal." "I Want Some More" is a mournful, swampy blues, of regret and lost love, on which Eddy steals the show with his amazing guitar talent. Tramp On Your Street closes with "Tenntex Tear Down," which is a mostly Eddy blazing instrumental reprise of "Heart Of Texas."

As Shaver, they went on to record several more albums, 1995's Unshaven: Shaver Live At Smith's Olde Bar, 1996's Highway Of Life, 1998's Victory, 1999's Electric Shaver, and 2001's critically acclaimed The Earth Rolls On. Sadly, Billy Joe's string of misfortune continued. His mother and wife passed away within a month of each other in 1999. The Earth Rolls On, turned out to be the very last Shaver CD, as Eddy tragically died Dec. 31, 2000 of a drug overdose, and what was their strongest release since their landmark Tramp On Your Street, wound up being released posthumously in April of 2001. Billy Joe Shaver has soldiered on, and toured to promote their final release, however his personal losses finally took their toll on him, and he wound up having heart bypass surgery. Now fully recovered, and proving you can't keep a good man down, Billy Joe has a new label (Compadre), and a new CD reuniting him once again with producer RS Fields, on the way in November, that will include a song co-written by Eddy, as well as an unreleased song by his late son. However, Tramp On Your Street is where the magic between father and son started, and stands as a musical masterpiece nearly a decade later.