By Doug Hill

pop writer



Billy Joe Shaver crumbled crackers into red chili with a gnarled fist. He washed The Diner's finest down with Red Bull. It was band chow time Feb. 4 before a show promoted by Steven White at Sooner Theatre.

Conversation meandered through the long dry spell, $100 a bale hay, eating horse meat at Shorty's and how good the Van's Pig Stand ribs were. Shaver's stream of consciousness style showed why he's America's most intriguing songwriter.

"Most of my songs are written trying to get back in the house. Unfortunately that'd only work once and then I'd have to write another one to get back in. Some were written trying to stay alive. Then there are some fun ones. It's the cheapest psychiatry there is," Shaver said.

He knows what women want. "Whatever it is, they don't want you to know what it is. They want everything, for starters," Shaver said.

"Billy Joe has no clue what women want," his Norman friend Mrs. David Fries said. The charming lady told us about her many happy hours as a 1960s child watching movies at Sooner Theatre.

Shaver's earliest musical memory was in Corsicana, Texas, circa 1942. "I had diapers on and I was crawling away from my uncle's house in the country. I saw this building and these African-American people. They were having church, singing on Sunday and it looked to me like that building was just rocking. I took off running toward them and my Aunt Dorothy grabbed me from behind."

Shaver's life-changing record was made by pal Waylon Jennings. "'Honky Tonk Heroes' changed my life but didn't change me. Waylon stuck his neck way out doing that. Chet Atkins and them thought it would be bad -- because it's so raw. But it actually worked out real good."

Shaver's short list of Texas talent: "I love Todd Snider. And there's this little girl down there in Waco named Kimberly Kelly. She's real good. She don't have a record but she writes the songs."

Shaver's unexplored musical direction blends country and rap. "We'd call it 'crap,'" he said. "I could do that. It's just poetry."

Someone at the table explained opening act Hosty Duo's combo concept. "They're saving money," Shaver said with admiration and a smile.

Hosty Duo

In matching powder-blue tuxedos, Mike Byars and Mike Hosty looked like prom night don'ts. It was elegance at the drive-thru.

Appropriate to the gig, the Duo poured on the twang. They combined traditional country music with hipster irreverence. HD's tilted world involves mezzo cyclones morphing into "metho-cyclones" (after sucking up the necessary chemicals over Noble), irresistible KFC counter babes and a song about robot music.

Hosty's red dirt rap cited the Gatlin Brothers, Menudo, OKC's Color Me Badd, the Osmonds and Back Street Boys among early robots. "We figured there's just too many songs about Texas," Hosty said. "Oklahoma Breakdown" is a sweet Cleveland county waltz.



Billy Joe Shaver

A shrieking-whistle blues harp solo opened Shaver special "Fast Train to Georgia." He's a genius songwriter with a Sooner composition of his own titled "Oklahoma Wind."

Shaver danced around stage like a prairie fire. He did Cajun-flavored "Honeybee," written as a child. Shaver's guitar was strapped neck down and over shoulder, as he sang, "The devil made me do it the first time/the second time I did it on my own."

During his Bible story ballad about an eagle, Shaver flapped his wings grandly in a peerless ballet. He's honky-tonk Saturday night then back pew Sunday morning.

"I wrote this song for my son who died of a heroin overdose, New Year's Eve 2000," Shaver said. The four-piece guitar band stood still, their backs turned, hats off during the virtuoso guitarist's solo tribute by his father.

Shaver played "Slim Chance and the Can't Hardly Playboys" and "There's No Fool Like An Old Fool" from new 17-track album "The Real Deal" (Compadre Records, 2005). Norman's David Fries came on stage once for a strong vocal solo.

Shaver concluded with signature w.a.s.p. anthem, "Try and Try Again." Like saltines at dinner, the audience was in the palm of his hands.