Voting Station

Billy Joe Shaver

Please vote to return to collections.

Vocalist

The Resume

    (August 16, 1939-October 28, 2020)
    Born in Corsicana, Texas
    Outlaw country singer/songwriter
    Notable songs include ‘Old Five and Dimers Like Me,’ ‘You Asked Me To,’ ‘Honky Tonk Heroes,’ ‘Willie, the Wandering Gypsy, and Me,’ ‘Live Forever,’ ‘I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train,’ and ‘I’m Just and Old Chunk of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be a Diamond Someday)’
    Appeared in the films ‘The Apostle’ (1997), ‘Secondhand Lions’ (2003), and ‘The Wendell Baker Story’ (2005)
    Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (2004) and the Texas Music Hall of Fame (2006)

Why he might be annoying:

    He joined the Navy at 17, but was thrown out for getting into a fight with an officer.
    He and Brenda Joyce Tindall were married, divorced, remarried, re-divorced, and re-remarried.
    His marriage to Jean Shaver lasted less than a year.
    His original recordings of his songs were less successful than the cover versions.
    He titled one of his albums ‘Electric Shaver.’
    He passed up a chance to join Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson on the album ‘Wanted: The Outlaws’ (1976) because his wife wanted him to distance himself from his outlaw image. ‘Wanted’ became the first country album to be certified platinum for sales of over one million.
    His description of life as a country outlaw: ‘Willie and Waylon and me would be sitting in a room. Waylon would say, ‘I wonder what kind of pill this is.’ Willie would say, ‘I don’t know. Give it to Billy Joe and see what happens.’’
    He shot a man, Billy Bryant Coker, in the face outside Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon (March 31, 2007) and was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Why he might not be annoying:

    His father was a moonshiner who abandoned the family before Billy Joe’s birth.
    He learned to play guitar despite losing two fingers from his right hand in a lumber mill accident.
    His songs were covered by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley.
    His son Ernie died of a heroin overdose at age 38 (2000).
    He recovered after suffering a heart attack onstage during an Independence Day show in New Braunfels, Texas (2001).
    He was acquitted in the saloon shooting, having testified that he had acted in self defense after Coker threatened him with a knife (2010).
    He said about writing songs, ‘It’s the cheapest psychiatry there is.’
    He was the first recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting (2002).
    He received the Poet’s Award from the Academy of Country Music to honor his songwriting (2019).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 5 Votes: 40.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 81.82% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying