| |
- Billy Joe Shaver
Billy and the Kid
Compadre
- By Scott Snidow
 On
New Year's Day 2001, the world awoke to relatively no tension.
Headaches may have been plentiful, but there was none of that
Y2K crap that plagued it a year earlier. The news, by comparison,
on opening day of 2001 was relatively tame. However, buried in
the back pages of local newspapers and getting mention on some
of the less mainstream radio stations was an item of great interest,
and great sadness, to music lovers all over the planet. The night
before, as the world celebrated the birth of yet another year,
rising star and guitarist excellence Eddy Shaver had passed away
from an overdose of heroin.
Almost immediately, rumors began to circulate in the music
world of an album that Eddy was working on. A solo project, something
completely different from the work of Shaver, the band that he
and his father worked together. It was hard to separate fact
from fiction as the stories passed around. Some versions had
it that it was nearly completed, and that it would probably be
released at a later date, while others told of rough tapes that
were no where near ready to be released to the public. Some stories
said it was a rock album, while others spoke of a blues album
in the vein of SRV. However, years passed, and nothing more was
ever heard of this solo album.
That is, until now.
Following the release of Freedom's Child in 2002, Billy
Joe Shaver and producer Tony Colton returned to those "lost"
tracks of Eddy's. Colton had worked with Eddy on the 1996 recording
sessions. Billy Joe had been father and co-worker to Eddy. So
for both men, this was a labor of love. The result of their work
on these tapes have been released as Billy and the Kid
on Compadre records.
Roughly half of this album contains the tracks recorded by
Eddy Shaver lo those many years ago. They give an insight into
the direction that he was hoping to take his guitar wizardry.
A heavy, driving, blues rock sound permeates the tracks of this
album, unlike any that fans of the rocking, rollicking honky-tonk
band Shaver have ever heard. Colton and the senior Shaver have
done an excellent job in constructing this record.
This album is poignant in its production. There is even an
alpha and omega to it that, though produced no doubt intentionally,
is nonetheless brilliant. The Alpha is the opening track, "Fame,"
which features the elder Shaver on vocals, accompanied solely
by a plucked acoustic guitar.
Fame. You brought elusive fame, a very somber and sober
Shaver sings:
Somehow you found your way into my life today.
Desire. That all-consuming fire.
Is racing through my veins like lightning through a wire.
I never changed. I still remain the same.
My few and precious friends still love me anyway.
I look up in the stars, and wonder where you are.
I owe it all to you. You're prayers have all come true.
Oh fame.
With that, the elder Shaver gives a nod to the son and the
wife who preceded him in leaving this life, and one can hear
the pain, the sorrow, and the joy of having known and loved in
his voice all at the same time.
Eddy, naturally, provides the omega, in the closing track
"Necessary Evil." Here we are once again faced with
the singer accompanied only by guitar. The guitar on this track,
however, sounds like the signature Dickie Betts bequeathed Stratocaster,
warmly over-driven through an old tube amp. Sullen, enunciated,
hardcore blues riffs open this track, interrupted by the singer's
smoky voice:
Well I knew that when we started,
it was wrong but Lord it felt so right.
And then later he wails:
You're a necessary evil,
That's what you are to me.
You're a necessary evil,
That's what you are to me.
You're the first thing that I gotta have and the last thing that
I really need.
Although the song is really about an affair with a friend's
woman, it is hard to listen to the words and not draw an analogy
to the dependency that robbed the world of this talent. And,
man, is this solitary track a moving closing to accent this album,
and the musician himself. This is pure genius, made even more
obvious by the simplicity of the setting in which it is being
displayed.
Sandwiched between these two tracks are nine more songs, some
hard country rockers and some beautiful ballads, only three of
which feature the younger Shaver on vocals. Even though we only
catch a glimpse of what we may have heard had Eddy survived,
it becomes apparent to the listener that he would have been a
major contender on the musical scene once his solo project was
released. Eddy had it all. The "pipes," the prowess
on the guitar, and an impeccable sense of timing with both.
While Billy and the Kid is certainly not the album
that Eddy would have produced as a solo offering, it does take
its place as the last, and possibly the best, "Shaver"
album, and gives us all a taste of what might have been.
www.billyjoeshaver.com
www.compadrerecords.com
|
|
