Live Forever: The Songwriting Legacy of Billy Joe Shaver

John and Robin Dickson Series in Texas Music

by Courtney S. Lennon, Brian T. Atkinson (Foreword), Bobby Bare (Foreword)

Billy Joe Shaver wrote nine of the ten songs included on Waylon Jennings’s landmark album  Honky Tonk Heroes and played a dominant role in the origins and development of the Outlaw Country movement of the 1970s. He has been named by Ray Wylie Hubbard, alongside Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, as a member of the “holy trinity” of Texas songwriters. He has exerted a Texas-sized influence on Texas music and especially Texas singer-songwriters, and is cited as a chief inspiration by at least two generations of artists. But although his influence has been profound, Shaver has the dubious honor of becoming, according to author Courtney S. Lennon, “country music’s unsung hero.” In  Live The Songwriting Legacy of Billy Joe Shaver , Lennon seeks to give Shaver the recognition his prolific output deserves. She unfolds for readers the complexity and the simplicity of the artist who wrote the songs that Brian T. Atkinson, in his foreword, calls “peaceful and pure, complex and convoluted, mad and merciful”—the musician who wrote “You Just Can’t Beat Jesus Christ” and “That’s What She Said Last Night,” “Honky Tonk Heroes,” and “Get Thee Behind Me Satan.” Based on in-depth interviews with a host of notable singer-songwriters, this book reveals and celebrates the saint and the sinner, the earthy intellectual and the hard-drinking commoner, the poet and the cowboy.

Genres: Music

248 pages, Hardcover

Published July 5, 2022

Reviews

[Thomas Thieme · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really a book of testimonials by musicians who have played with or been influenced by Billy Joe. It's not a biography. His own memoir Honky Tony Hero will give you a better picture of his life until someone writes a more detailed biography. (His book is about seventy pages of bio followed by his lyrics.)There are some interesting anecdotes here and there. Some of the songwriters interviewed are able to give articulate analyses of what makes his music important and that is the book's main value.

[Vernon Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Billy Joe Shaver was a mythological creature that rose out of the Texas dust and changed country music. He survived things that would break normal folks and came out on the other side as one of the greatest songwriters to ever walk the Earth. This collection of personal memories and anecdotes from his friends and colleagues tells the story of a scary, tough, beautiful, kind, and generous soul. One of the best “tribute” books I’ve ever come across…

[Emma Kate Bates · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this because my neighbor gave it to me but was actually way more interesting than I anticipated! Billy Joe Shaver was definitely an interesting person!

[Kevin Schaeffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

CSL
Did a great job researching and putting out the study of BJS life and times. I knew BJS was the muse behind Waylon’s best album but didn’t know a lot about the man.

I have very wide and diverse musical tastes being raised on Hank Williams , Johnny Cash , which grew into anything diversive , punk, gangster rap, heavy metal. BJS is a psychic glue holding all
That together . nice work CSL