Not Fade Away
BILLY JOE SHAVER
Outlaw country legend (1939-2020)
In 1973, Billy Joe Shaver pitched up unannounced at a Waylon Jennings recording session in Nashville. Jennings had casually invited Shaver to write some songs for his next album after catching the newcomer’s set at the previous year’s Dripping Springs Reunion in Texas, only to forget ever having done so.
On this occasion, Jennings offered him $100 to go away. But Shaver stood his ground. “I told him, ‘You’re going to listen to my songs or I’m gonna kick your ass here in front of God and everybody,” he recalled to Variety. “After I played him a bunch of my songs, he called in his band and we got to work.” Jennings was so impressed, in fact, that Shaver’s compositions formed the bulk of Jennings’ 1973 album Honky Tonk Heroes, which swiftly became an outlaw country landmark.
Shaver’s pugnacious attitude was the result of a difficult upbringing in Texas. His father left home before he was born, and he
