CMT Blog: Archive

At 70 years old, Billy Joe Shaver has more energy onstage than most of the acts I've seen in the past 12 months. The self-proclaimed "original honky-tonk hero" (according to the T-shirts at his merch table) turned in a Red Bull fueled performance at Nashville's Exit/In Tuesday night (Dec. 1) that a friend described as a carnival, and I couldn't disagree with him. Filled with humor and hard-earned wisdom, Shaver left nothing on the table.

He played with a surprisingly young band (one guitarist was only 15), and it gave his outlaw classics new life. "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train" came out hot and set the tone for the rest of the night -- short, fast songs with Shaver dancing and shadow boxing for a delighted crowd. With his fist raised in fighting spirit, Shaver's anthemic phrases became something like battle-cries: "I got a good Christian raisin' and an eighth grade education/And I don't need y'all treatin' me this way." "The Devil Made Me Do It the First Time" and "Honky Tonk Heroes" followed suit, but Shaver showed that his talent goes deeper than just rowdy drinking songs.

He toned it down for "Love Is So Sweet," "You Asked Me To," "I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal" and a few times sang without music, almost in a poetry reading fashion. Straddling the line of sadness and joy, "Star in My Heart" was the most devastating. He dedicated it to his son, Eddy, who died of a heroin overdose on New Year's Eve 2000. But the highlight of the night for me had to be Shaver's stage banter.

Honest, relatable and drop-dead funny, he's the grizzled old wiseguy that everybody loves to have around -- "Before I headed out on the road, my wife always used to say 'Be careful!' and 'Have fun!' Well, which one is it?!" -- "Behind every great man there's a woman saying 'You can't do that!'" -- "We're almost through here, and you got your money's worth a long time ago." Speaking of getting your money's worth, his story for the song "Ragged Old Truck" (involving guns, nudity and a trailer) is worth the price of admission by itself. If you're trying to show someone how much fun country music can be, you could do a lot worse than a Billy Joe Shaver show.