Billy Joe Shaver

Billy Joe Shaver never achieved the same level of fame as outlaw country peers like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, but his songs were a significant part of the movement's architecture and were widely covered by stars ranging from Johnny Cash to Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. A native Texan who lived the type of rough-and-tumble life that made his songs so appealing, Shaver was well into his thirties by the time he made his album debut. Bobby Bare heard something he liked in Shaver's earthy honky-tonk paeans to sinning and redemption, and hired him as a staff writer, a move t...