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Pure
Music 2003
A Fan's Perspective
POPMATTERS
Interview 1-26-03
Country
Line Magazine
"As always, each performance has the feel of an
ancient field recording or Walker Evans photograph, one more reason
Shaver remains a national treasure."
Rich Kienzle, AMAZON.COM
"…arguably Texas's top country singer-songwriter of the last
quarter-century."
John Morthland, BLENDER
Mixing smoldering Southern rock and closing-time country, his new album
Freedom's Child roars in the face of personal and national
tragedy."
Jim Ridley, NASHVILLE SCENE
"…certainly one of the year's best country albums"
Joe Heim, WASHINGTON POST
"Roaring back from the successive losses of his mother, wife and
son/collaborator Eddy, country outlaw, songwriter supreme Shaver offers
a surprisingly kicky collection of love ballads, social observations,
wordplayful novelties and melancholy memory pieces."
Bob Strauss, LA DAILY NEWS
"…with Freedom's Child (Compadre), the 63-year-old Shaver has
reemerged with some of the best songs of his career, which is saying a
lot."
Nick Cristiano, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
"…a magnificent blend of Billy Joe's latest stories and melodies
skillfully performed with a rough-hewn charm."
Jim Caliguiri, AUSTIN CHRONICLE
"Shaver, along with George Jones and Willie Nelson, is a Texas
outlaw master."
-Leopold Froehlich, PLAYBOY
"Shaver is still working gloriously outside the commercially
motivated boundaries of Music Row."
Jim Abbott, ORLANDO SENTINEL
"…one of the strongest country releases of the year."
John Lomax, HOUSTON PRESS
"Shaver's gift for the left-field observation that upends the
narrative, transforming the quotidian into revelation, is on ample
display here, making Freedom's Child a rich experience, as much for its
humanity as for its stirring music"
David McGee, BARNES&NOBLE.COM
"If you've followed insurgent country music from its outlaw
beginnings in the early ''70s to its post-punk present, you know that
the gritty simplicity of Billy Joe Shaver's Texas cowboy songs is a
common thread."
Mark Kemp, CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
His best tunes are both rowdy and startlingly vulnerable, burning with
the fervor of a preacher illuminating the gospel of the down and
out."
Bob Townsend, ATLANTA CONSTITUTION
Songs of Sin and Salvation: Carl
Wilson -- Canada Globe and Mail
May the God of your choosing bless you
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"It's hard to figure, but finally after grieving for so long, I felt the likenesses of my wife [Brenda] and son just melt into me," a chipper-sounding Shaver said last week as he and his band pulled into San Antonio for a show. "I feel like they're with me right now, and everything I do, they're helping me."
After Eddy died, of a drug overdose, Shaver didn't write for a while, though he did tour to support their final album together, The Earth Rolls On. Writing, however, "is the cheapest psychiatrist there is," he said, and he eventually got back to it. Still, after getting hit with another whammy - a heart attack and resulting bypass operation last year - he didn't feel up to making another album. He changed his mind only at the urging of producer R.S. Field, who deserves some sort of award just for getting Shaver back into the studio.
Freedom's Child has a wealth of moving, autobiographical material, as well as a twangy tribute to Johnny Cash, a swinging ode to the "Good Ol' U.S.A.," and the hilarious "That's What She Said Last Night," a cowrite with Eddy. They're all delivered with Shaver's usual rough-hewn grace.
Jamie Hartford, son of the late John Hartford, is filling the guitar role now in Shaver's young but experienced band.
"I feel great, I'm real happy," said Shaver, who also is being filmed by Luciana Pedrazza, pal Robert Duvall's girlfriend, for a possible documentary on his life. "And I'm so happy we got a good album out. R.S. did [1993's] Tramp On Your Street, and I got a lot of excitement out of that. And I'm getting even more with this one."
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Nick Cristiano
Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: Friday, November 29, 2002
On "Day by Day," the centerpiece of his remarkable new album, Billy Joe Shaver sings, "Day by day his heart kept on breaking/ And aching to fly to his home in the sky/ But now he's arisen from the flames of the forest/ With songs from the family that never will die."
The autobiographical number refers to the ton of grief that hit the Texas honky-tonk song poet within a two-year period: Shaver lost his mother, his wife, and, on New Year's Eve 2000, his son and musical collaborator, the brilliant guitarist Eddy Shaver. As "Day by Day" notes, the losses were almost too much for him to bear. But with Freedom's Child (Compadre), the 63-year-old Shaver has reemerged with some of the best songs of his career, which is saying a lot.
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Mark Kemp
The Charlotte Observer
Published: Friday, November 29, 2002
If you've followed insurgent country music from its outlaw beginnings in the early ''70s to its post-punk present, you know that the gritty simplicity of Billy Joe Shaver's Texas cowboy songs is a common thread. Shaver plays the Neighborhood Theatre on Saturday.
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WHO IS HE?
Shaver's name is relatively unknown in mainstream circles, but he gave Waylon Jennings one of his signature tunes ("Honky Tonk Heroes"), has been covered by rockers ranging from Elvis to the Allman Brothers, and inspired the music of more recent Americana artists including Steve Earle, Ryan Adams and even local songman David Childers. Shaver brings his latest batch of tunes to Charlotte on Saturday.
WHAT'S NEW: 'FREEDOM'S CHILD'
Shaver's 13th album almost didn't happen. In 1999, he lost his wife and mother to cancer; in 2000, his son and musical partner, guitarist Eddy, died of a heroin overdose. To get through his pain, Shaver did what he does best: He wrote about it. On "Freedom's Child," he sings with heartache and humor about himself, his family and his faith in God.
MUSIC THERAPY
"Most of the songs on this album's fairly blunt, in-your-face kinda stuff," Shaver says. "I just needed to get it out of me. There's a song on there called 'Day By Day,' where I just tell my story. I'd been writing on it for 20 years."
HIS LOSS
"You learn to live with it, but you'll never understand why it happens. The night Eddy passed, Willie (Nelson) throwed a band together for me and I went out to his place. I stayed over there all night and we talked for hours. You need friends like that."
MOVIN' ON
"Hell, it'll be nice to be back on the road. I can't wait to get over in your neck of the woods. You know what I'm looking forward to? That sweet iced tea. I love that stuff!"
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