News Round Up:Billy Joe Shaver / Ray Wylie Hubbard’s The last Rites of Ransom Pride

  • Country Music Prisde has a great interview with this indie sweethearts of country punk Those Darlin’s.

News Round Up: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Begins

  • The winners of the 20th annual International Bluegrass Music Awards went to: Dailey & Vincent : Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper : Instrumental Group of the Year, Dan Tyminski – Male Vocalist of the Year, Dale Ann Bradley – Female Vocalist of the Year, Wheels : Dan Tyminski, (artist/producer) Album of the Year, Don’t Throw Mama’s Flowers Away : Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass (artist) – Song of the Year (via BlueGrassJournal.com) See photos from the award show, held at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn (The Bluegrass Blog)
  • London-based Americana (Euro-Americana?) band The Dog Roses have a new EP, Just Another Saturday, scheduled for release next month. It is discribed as “foot tapping country-bluegrass mix with hints of celtic thrown in for good measure.” Download Let the Bottle Take the Heartache from the forthcoming EP: Let The Bottle Take The Heartache Away.mp3
  • Go pick up the new podcast from NineBullets.net featuring tracks from upcoming cds by Lucero,  Strawfoot and Micah Schnabel (Two Cow Garage) as well as new material from Drivin’ & Cryin’ and Chuck Ragan.
  • Sounds Country takes a look back at Jerry Jeff Walker’s 1975 release Ridin’ High
  • Hardly Strictly Bluegrass begins today and goea on until Sunday in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Speedway Meadow. The 9th year of this free annual Americana and roots festival features 5 stages featuring John Prine, Lyle Lovett, Ricky Skaggs, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Billy Joe Shaver, Elizabeth Cook, Buddy Miller and many, many more. You can follow HSB on twitter. And you can follow Twang Nation tweets from the festival all weekend.

Billy Joe Shaver indicted in 2007 Texas shooting

From the Associated Press: WACO, Texas (AP) — A McLennan County grand jury has indicted country singer Billy Joe Shaver on felony charges for his alleged role in an April 2007 shooting at a Lorena bar.

Shaver, 69, is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony, and a charge of unlawful carrying of a handgun by a licensed holder on a licensed premises, a third-degree felony, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported in its online edition Wednesday.

An official at the McLennan County Jail in Waco told The Associated Press that Shaver had not turned himself in Wednesday night.

Messages left by the AP for Shaver’s last known attorney and to his representative seeking comment after business hours weren’t immediately returned.

One witness said Shaver followed the victim, Billy B. Coker, out of Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon in Lorena on April 1, 2007, and asked, “Where do you want it?” before shooting him in the face, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed last year.

Another witness said that after hearing gunfire, she went outside and heard Shaver say to Coker, “Tell me you are sorry,” and “Nobody tells me to shut up,” according to the affidavit signed by then-acting Lorena Police Chief John Moran.

Coker, who was treated and released, told police last year that the shooting was unprovoked.

An attorney for Shaver said at the time that Coker was drunk, aggressive and had a knife and that he followed Shaver outside.

End Associated Press. My take? Mr. Coker is looking to make his mistake into a pay bay.

A Conversation with Billy Joe Shaver

I am truly honored to post this very first interview for Twang Nation with the Texas singing/songwriter, original outlaw and old friend of my dad, the legendary Billy Joe Shaver. I talked to Billy Joe while he was on his tour bus headed to “Sante Fe, New Mexico” supporting his latest release Everybody’s Brother.A special thanks to Cary Baker at Conqueroo for setting the interview up.

Billy Joe Shaver – Hello? This is Billy Joe calling.

Twang Nation – Thanks for calling, sir! Where you calling from?

I’m on a bus traveling from a show in Lubbock to a show in Sante Fe, New Mexico. If I lose you man I’m out here on the road, I don’t know what it is with these phones these days.

Understood. Then let’s get going, first off how’s your health?

I’m doing really well, in spite of it all. I’m enjoying my new-found popularity than I have before. Lot’s of kids are starting to find out about me and lots of kids are coming my shows and bringing friends.

Yeah, well I think that there is a market for authenticity in country music that crosses generations.

Oh yes, well I think the work we did did in Nashville laid a foundation for that to happen. I think right now we are laying down a even stronger foundation for country music for the future.

And you have a new generation or musicians that have taken the torch you helped pass, Dale Watson, Hank Williams III and Shooter Jennings.

Yeah, I love Dale. Shooters great, Shooter, Hank III, they’re all great.

You mentioned your new-found popularity, now in the last in the last decade you’ve appeared in movies (With Robert Duvall in The Apostle (1996) and Secondhand Lions (2003), The Wendell Baker Story (2005), and in a documentary of his life, A Portrait of Billy Joe (2004) directed by Luciana Pedraza.) you played at the Grand ‘Ol Opry (1999), performed on Country Music Television’s “Outlaws” (2005) inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (2004) and the the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame (2006) as well as making your mark in contemporary pop-culture by singing the theme songs for the Television show Squidbillies (Adult Swim) so you’re finally coming into your own it seems.

Yeah, it’s funny, it might just be sympathy. I’ve been hanging around for so long (laughs). I’m 68 now but I feel better than I ever have because back when Jerry Max (my dad) and I were hanging around we was hitting everything thing in the world, man. After a while I kind of unloaded the wagon a little bit and I don’t do those things I used to do and I feel much better now.

With all this clean living you must now be being rewarded.

(Laughs) I hope my past sins don’t catch up with me, but that’s what Jesus is for.

Would you say back then you had to live in the dark to now the light?

Yeah, that’s right..that’s a great way to put it.

In your song “I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train” you sing that “my grandma’s old-age pension is the reason that I’m standing here today,” how else did your grandma influence your life?

Well after by Father left us (Shaver’s father, Virgil, abandoned the family before he was born) and then my Mother got sick and they didn’t know if she was going to make it. Of course I’m inside of her, but she pulled through and she said “If this baby is a boy I’m gone.” and sure enough got a chance to work in the honky-tonks in Waco so my grandmother raised me until I was twelve-years-old. She was a real sharp lady, an Irish woman Collins was her name, and she got the job done.

Did you have any formal music lessons growing up?

No, no never did. I’m just self-taught. I started singing when I was just a kid. I used to sing and sell papers on the corner when I was just about 9 or 10 years old out there in Corsicana, Texas and I sold a lot of papers. But the big boys got ahold of me after I sold a lot of papers and they’d beat me up and take my money and stuff and I had to back off there for a while (laughs.)

You recorded “White Freight Liner Blues” which was a Townes Van Zandt song, did you know him?

Oh yeah, Townes was a real good friend of mine. I met him in the early 60’s in Houston at this old place called the Old Quarter. Back then I could stay up with him so I figured I must be pretty good, but my wife just really hated him. She’s gone on to Jesus now, but when I used to get into trouble with Townes I would lay a lot of blame on him and she would have to come pick us up a lot. She didn’t like him at all.

Back when she was dying of cancer they told me she had about a week to go and I told her, “I had a dream that Townes was up in heaven, and he was going to be greeting you when you get there.” and she said “Got-dang it now I got to live.” and She lived another year!

(laughs) Yeah she used to say somebody could make a lot of money selling razor blades at the front door of one of his (Townes) shows. But I loved him, I thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread, really.

He was hard to keep up with.

Yeah, I hung with him a lot. We played a lot of places together. He was out there, but so was I, but I think he was out a little further than I was I believe.

It caught up with him.

Yeah it did, yeah it did and I’m sorry it happened because everybody loved him so much. I guess he died right on time. They used to say that he was unmanageable. They used to say that about me. But now Mathew Knowles (head of Compadre Records and father of Beyoncé) is managing me now and things are going real good for me. I’ve stuck with that little label for some time now and now things seem to be rolling along.

So will we see Beyoncé on your next album?

(Laughs) I don’t know about that but it wouldn’t hurt! She’s quite a talent, and beautiful too.

You paid your dues and went through a lot and came out pretty good on the other end.

Yeah, I was lucky. I always had Jesus in my heart all the way and I got born again when I wrote “I’m Just An Old Lump Of Coal” now I’m wondering if a born-again Christian needs to be born-again-again! (laughs) It took me a time of two for it to stick but now I’m in good shape.

You think you’ll ever quit your day job and become a full-time actor?

No man, I did a little of it, but I really admire actors they really have to be on the ball. I did a little bit of it myself in “The Apostle” with Robert Duvall, I played his best friend Joe in that, and then “The Wendell Baker Story” and “Secondhand Lions” but if you blink you’ll miss me in that one.

With 3:10 to Yuma and Duvall’s success with “Broken Trail” it looks like Westerns are making a resurgence.

He’s (Duvall) at the top of the list on those (westerns) ’cause he know ’em inside out. I think for a while he was raised on his Uncle’s farm or ranch down here in Texas, that’s the reason he’s got down that Texas drawl and all that stuff. It’s kind of amazing really cause I think he was an Army brat and lived all over but he was down there at his Uncle’s working with horses.

I know Tommy Lee Jones has a ranch in his birthplace in San Saba, Texas and does some work with horses.

Yeah man, he does it to play polo.

That’s what I heard. Seems kind of hot to play polo.

I’ll tell you what that’s a hard thing to do but he’s quite a horseman, I’ve seen him play. I like Tommy, I really think the world of him.

How was it to be in Nashville when Waylon and Willie started to shake things up and what part did you play?

It kind of got started in the late 60’s, I had written all these songs and I thought they were great. There was this music festival called “The Dripping Springs Reunion” (later called the Willie Nelson 4th of July Picnic) back in 1972 and of course in was in Dripping Springs, Texas which sounds like a venereal disease (laughs). Anyway, I was down at this festival in a trailer and there was a few of us sitting around passing the guitar, well I did a song and Waylon come busting out and says “I gotta have that song!” so he wanted to record it and wanted me to come to Nashville and he said “You got any more songs?” and I said “Yeah, I got a whole sack full of them!” ad he said “Well come on over and I’ll do a whole album of them.” Well I chased him around for about six months out there and I finally caught him at RCA at their big studio and Captain Midnight (Radio Personality in Nashville radio in the late ’60s and early ’70s) let me in, and it was late at night. Waylon and the band was recording and there were groupies and hangers-on all there in the hall and everyone was hanging around knowing that they were going to do something they just didn’t know what or when. When (Waylon) heard I was there he sent Captain Midnight to give me a hundred dollar bill and told me to “Take a hike.” I told him to take that hundred back to him and stick it where the sun don’t shine. (laughs)

Then Waylon comes down with one of these bikers, and he says to me “What do you want hoss?” and I said “Waylon, you better listen to one of my songs or else.” and the biker starts coming towards me but he stopped him. Well, he took me into the studio and Waylon said “You start playing and if I say that’s it, you leave and that’s it and we never see each other again and that’s the end of it.”Well I played “Ain’t No God in Mexico” and “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” and by the time I got to “Honky Tonk Heroes” he slapped his leg and started getting things together. He got his own band in there and he really stuck his neck out for me.

These were the right songs for him because they were too big for me and he could sing circles around me and these song were so huge they needed someone like him to sing them.
Well Chet Atkins (then vice president of RCA) screamed bloody murder and said it wouldn’t work but we stuck it out. I had been in Nashville since ’66 so I think I have paid my dues. At first the (music) community didn’t want me in their circle but I got accepted after a while and everybody started to write (songs) that way, it’s kind of raw and it changed everything around. You had to have a tie to go to a lot of places in Nashville back then and we were more like rock and roll. We laid down a foundation and changed things for the better I think. Nashville fought it all the way, they thought it was going to hurt them but it helped them.

Before you guys shook things up Atkins and the other label heads would wheel in the strings and the Jordanaires and that was just the way it was, like it or not.

Yeah, that was about it, yeah. they’d say “You don’t know how to do this part of it.” but we did and it worked out.

Seems they were embarrassed about their history. the hillbilly roots of country was shaming them.

Yeah, I think that’s right. They tried to be sophisticated for some reason or another. And if someone was a college graduate or he flew an airplay or something they’d grab him up and trying to get some class in there, but I think they were going thewrong way because me, I got an eighth-grade education and I guess they didn’t want me shining too much. But I got my G.E.D. doggone it! (laughs)

Well, I don’t know about that. One of your breed was a Rhodes Scholar (Kris Kristofferson) and he ain’t chopped liver!

Oh man, I love Kris! He’d be one of my favorites. The firs song he’d done of anyone elses
was “Good Christian Soldier” (written by Shaverand Bobby Bare) on that album “The Silver Tongued Devil and I.” His family tried to disown him because he was suppose to go to West Point but instead he went to Nashville and was a bartender and a janitor and stuff, and he cut that Silver Tongued Devil album and we all knew it was going to be a big hit. Well, he put my song on there and had to borrow some money to get the record done ’cause he wasn’t getting any from his family.

Well it takes about a year for the money to get to you, but then after his first hit he took his own money and produced my first album (1973’s Old Five And Dimers Like Me.) That’s the kind of guy he is, he’s just the best songwriter anywhere I don’t see how anybody could be better than him. I love to see him perform live, it’s like going to see a preacher or something, man.

It seems to me that you, Kris, Willie, Waylon and Johnny (Cash), you all had each others back when the chips were down with the Nashville status quo, were you all aware at that time the impact you were having?

Not really, we never really felt like outlaws, more like outcasts. Nobody wanted to let us in and we had to bust in.

There seems to be a lot of new artists coming up and paying homage to the work you guys did.

Oh yeah, they’re doing my songs these young kids. Like Jackson Taylor and Todd Snyder and ..gosh..there’s so many of them that are just dangerously good.

Now let’s spend a little time on your new release, it’s called “Everybody’s Brother,” it’s a gospel album but it’s not a typical gospel album.

Yeah it’s got a honky-tonk feel to it because that’s what I play and I don’t offend anybody with the songs I play on there, as a matter of fact I get bikers and lots of people getting saved come to my shows and crying with me….and it’s a good thing! We’re all sinners and we all need help.

How was it working with John Carter Cash (son of Johnny and June and producer of “Everybody’s Brother”)?

Man that was like a dream cause I’ve known him since he was eight and he’s just a big wonderful person. He’s really easy to work with and he gets so much done so quickly. It’s kind of miraculous the way he does it. He had so much time watching his daddy in the business. My wife worked for 14 years as a hair-stylist for Cash, we’re all part of the family really.

We talked a little but about song you’ve covered, any other favorites?

I covered a Mere Haggard song called “Ramblin’ Fever” and I still think that that might be the best opening line I ever heard, it’s ” My hat don’t hang on the same nail too long” (laughs) man that knocked me flat! He’s a great one I tell you.

Okay, just to wrap up, I wanted to ask you about the Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon incident.

Yeah that was just an unfortunate incident. Anybody else would have done the same thing I did, this guy (Billy Bryant Coker) was a real big bully and he pulled a knife and cut my arm and I let it go at first but then he insulted me so bad we just had to go outside and one thing led to another and , he already had a gun, and I had time to go out to my car and get one. He took so long to aim his little ‘ol 22 and I got lucky and hit him in the face and he dropped everything and then he said he was sorry!

I bet he was. Thanks for your time.

Adiós brother.

Beyonce Goes Country

Houston born Beyonce Knowles, former Destiny’s Child frontwoman, current accessory for rapper Jay Z, and daughter of Mathew Knowles, owner of Houston roots and country label “Compadre Records” (home of Billy Joe Shaver and James McMurtry, made an appearance with Sugarland at the American Music Awards. Sugarland was performing a countrified version of her hit ‘Irreplaceable’ which they cover at many of their shows.

Beyonce seems to have also been greasing the wheels for her next career choice.

The R&B star has recently stated that she is currently “working an album of Country And Western songs” and is working on it with the British singer and songwriter Amanda Ghost who was the writer of the decade’s most irritating ditty, James Blunt’s hit “You’re Beautiful”

Kelly Clarkson, Bon Jovi and  Jami Fox have all recently tried their hand at country music trying to catch a bit of that Aerosmith/Run DMC genre-crossing lightening in a bottle. But the artists they choose to duet with (Kelly with Reba and Jamie with Rascal Flatts for or the bland material they choose to record (yeah, I’m looking at you Bon Jovi- you helped screw up rock, keep your pop-rock-country meat hooks off country. The Eagles are doing fine on their own.)

And where some artsists can genre jump with grace and dignity and comes out looking pretty damn good (the recent collaboration of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss comes to mind)

Beyonce has said ‘She’s a fan of country music and thought that would be an interesting and exciting way to go.” Being a home girl from Texas gives me a glimmer of hope, but Beyonce’s choice of music in her R&B career and her choice of a Brit to pen the tunes on her upcoming country release makes me think I can put it up there with Cowboy Troy’s.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbCdQS2tqM8[/youtube]

Billy Joe Shaver’s Bluebird Cafe 1992 Performance To Be Released On CD

On September 11, Billy Joe Shaver will release a CD featuring his 1992 concert at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe titled “Storyteller: Live at the Bluebird 1992.”

The iconic, Texan-born Shaver, now aged 67, has had his share of run-ins with the law including shooting a man in the face. The man did not retain life threatening injuries and Shaver, after turning himself in, was charged with aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a handgun. After a court hearing, he was released on a $50,000 bond.

Along with being a country singer and songwriter he has also performed in movies including “The Wendell Baker Story,” “Secondhand Lions” and “The Apostle.”

Shaver is known among his peers as a survivor having lost his mother and wife to cancer in 1999 and his son in 2000 due to a drug overdose.

The new CD will be released through Sugar Hill Records.

Billy Joe Shaver Released on Bond in Connection with Bar Shooting

From the Associated Press – Country singer Billy Joe Shaver was released on bond Tuesday after surrendering to authorities in connection with a weekend bar shooting that wounded a man, police said.

Shaver turned himself in at the McLennan County Jail in Waco and was released after posting $50,000 bail, said Lorena Police Chief John Moran.

Shaver, 67, was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawfully carrying a handgun on the premises of a business with a license to sell alcohol for on-premises consumption.

The singer’s attorney, Joseph A. Turner of Austin, has said his client shot the man in self defense after he left the Lorena bar and followed Shaver into the parking lot Saturday night. Turner said Shaver did not know the man and that the stranger was drunk, aggressive and had a knife.

The shooting occurred at 8:30 p.m. Saturday outside Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon off Interstate 35, according to Lorena police. The victim was reportedly shot in the cheek.

Shaver, who lives in Waco, about 15 miles from Lorena, rose to country music stardom in the 1970s. Shaver, an acclaimed songwriter whose hits include “Georgia on a Fast Train” and “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be a Diamond Someday)” has recorded more than 20 albums.

Mathew Knowles, president and CEO of Music World Entertainment — which last month acquired Shaver’s label, Houston-based Compadre Records — said he talked to Shaver on Tuesday after he was released on bond.

Knowles, who is Beyonce’s father, said he and Shaver did not discuss the shooting but that he wanted the country singer to know that the company supports him.

Knowles said Shaver was appearing at Waterloo Records in Austin to promote his greatest hits CD.

“Billy Joe Shaver is an icon in the country music industry. We’re not going to turn our back on him at all,” Knowles said. “I personally wanted to tell him that, which is what we talked about today.”

Willie Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic

Willie NelsonIt’s that time again. Time for bbq, fireworks, sunburns and Willie’s picnic. This 4th of July, get yourself to the Fort Worth Stockyards in Fort Worth, Texas. Advance tickets will be available for $30; otherwise, they’ll cost $35 at the door.

So far, the following artists are on board: Willie Nelson & Family, Kris Kristofferson, Stoney Larue, Shooter Jennings, Del Castillo, Pauline Reese, Noel Haggard, Titty Bingo, James Hand, Jimmy Lee Jones, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Johnny Bush, The Geezinslaw Brothers, Ray Price, No Justice, Randy Rogers Band, Billy Joe Shaver, The Mother Truckers, Mike Graham, Leon Russell, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, David Allan Coe, Freddy Powers, Bonnie Bishop, Bill McDavid, and Heather Myles.