Interview: Billy Joe Shaver on Bob Dylan, new country

• Shaver weighs in on the state of modern country.
• Shaver talks about Bob Dylan mention his name in song.
• Americana artist Robbie Fulks reflects on Shaver's artistry and impact.

Billy Joe Shaver can sometimes make you wonder how many men he really is.

Is he the introspective poet who penned the country standard, "Old Five and Dimers Like Me"? Or the hell raiser who recently wrote "Last Call For Alcohol"?

The man who tells you that you'll be okay in your life as long as you love Jesus? Or the gun-totin' guy who, after shooting a man a few years back, successfully pleaded self-defense and walked out of court a free man?

The answer to all these questions, is that old punchline: Yes.

Now closing in on 75, the legendary songwriter has a brilliant new album out, "Long in the Tooth," which should serve as a primer for all those drugstore cowboys who have never heard real country music.

The conversation begins with an urgent question: What's happened to country music? Don't these new dudes have any demons?

"They do, they're just not writin' about it," Shaver says. "There are people out there who do things and tell you about it. Then there are some people who don't tell you. A lot of the songs on the new record are kind of healing songs. Not that I meant for them to be. They just are. I ain't no prince or nothing like that. So I try and make that clear. When I write, I try and heal myself first and if they heal other people, too, that's great.... Most of my songs are written trying to stay alive. The rest of them are trying to get back in the house."

If Shaver isn't exactly a household name, he certainly has the kinds of fans most songwriters would happily namedrop. Aside from being joined by that one man missing from Mt. Rushmore, Willie Nelson, on the chugging "It's Hard to Be an Outlaw," Shaver was mentioned a few years back in a song by the man who virtually invented the game, Bob Dylan, on "I Feel a Change Coming On." Considering Dylan then mentions he's also reading James Joyce, one wonders how this made Shaver feel, the day he felt the breeze from this tip of this particular cap.

"It didn't knock me off my feet or anything," Shaver says, obviously pleased. "Maybe because it seems like I know him, even though I never met him. I didn't go running around the house or anything. But I did feel an elation. It really was nice of him to do that. Especially in the same sentence as another good writer."

Shaver savors the irony of it all, too. Many years ago, before he really got rolling as a songwriter's songwriter, Dylan, unintentionally, almost made him quit.

"Bob had this thing in his early songs that seemed to be about world peace, which was something that I favored, too. I heard a bunch of his songs and had my hat in my hand and was just about to leave the business. Thinking the way Bob did things, I just thought, 'Well, he's done everything.' I was listening to his tapes and traveling across the Brazos River and I thought, 'I'll just go along the best I can and see if I can make a little dent in music,' 'cause I enjoyed it and knew I was good. So I threw all of Bob's tapes in the river and just forgot about his music for a while. After that, I didn't look back and started to get pretty good at songwriting."

Perhaps the man who really put Shaver on the map was Waylon Jennings. In 1973, after they almost settled things with a fistfight at the studio where Jennings was recording (long story), the singer, who'd already heard Shaver's "Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me," let Shaver sing him a couple of new tunes. Jennings was so impressed that even though Chet Atkins, Jennings' producer, was worried about the use of salty language in the tunes, it didn't matter to the Big Man. Jennings fired Atkins, got his pal, the gifted songwriter, Tompall Glaser, to produce, and the result, "Honky Tonk Heroes," was a smash, virtually starting the 'Outlaw' movement in country music. And every song on the album, with one exception, was written or co-written by Shaver.

Robbie Fulks, one of American music's true treasures, has this to say about Shaver's style.

"What I like so much about Billy Joe's writing," says Fulks, "is the sense of humor and the intense feeling it has. I don't know if those are related, but I like to think so — like to think they stem from a vulnerable, curious kind of intelligence that is as apt to poke playful holes in logical expectation as it is to draw back in quiet humility at the great forces in our lives: love and outlawry and death and God. I saw him a couple of weeks ago for the first time in years, and it was like it always is, a soul-shaking experience."

Shaver, too, knows a bit about soul-shaking. In addition to the understandable ruckus he was forced to make with his gun a few years back, the man has had an ungodly amount of heartache in his life. In 1999, he lost both his mother and his wife to cancer. Not long after that, Shaver's beloved son and first-rate guitarist, Eddy, died of a drug overdose. One wonders, considering that Shaver somehow made it through these closely-spaced horrors, how he's managed to keep creative, hell, just stay alive. And if he has any wisdom for the rest of us, about how he either stood straight or simply staggered through these hardscrabble times.

"Of course, I pretty much keep walking," Shaver said. "But also, I've got Jesus Christ in my heart. I don't shove it down peoples' throats. But I believe He is number one and I'm number two. I'm very much a Born-Again Christian. Even though I do still sin, you can do that and continue to be Born Again and again. I know that my God forgives me 7 times 70 a day. I've always said, 'If you don't love Jesus, you can go to Hell.'"

It's a line that could come right out of one of Shaver's songs. It's true and simple, cut to the bone and a little bit scary. But you can also imagine a sly smile on his face when he says it. Add some rhymes and a strong melody and right there, you understand what Willie and Waylon, Bob and Robbie heard in those songs. You also think, if it worked this long for this crazy, poetic cowboy, who's seen and done it all and is still here? Maybe, just maybe, there's some hope for the rest of the human race, too.

Details: 8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 20. Rhythm Room, 1019 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix. $28; $25 in advance. 602-265-4842, rhythmroom.com