Billy Joe Shaver sets show at White Water Tavern

When Billy Joe Shaver released his latest album in August 2014, he named it Long in the Tooth, after himself, or at least due to his image as an elder statesman of music. He agrees now that he's even "longer in the tooth."

No matter. He's still proud of that album, his first since 2008 and his first (of 23 albums) to make the Billboard 200 chart. When it came time to record the album's 10 songs, he rounded up a whole passel of his musical pals, including some fellow old-timers -- Willie Nelson, Tony Joe White and Leon Russell, for instance -- plus some decidedly younger pickers and singers, such as Shawn Camp, a native of Perryville.

Shaver, who turned 76 in August, waxes philosophic when considering the recent deaths of a couple of musical icons, David Bowie and Glenn Frey. Their passing has made Shaver even more determined than he already was to keep doing the only thing that he knows how to do.

"I'm not planning to slow down, nope," he says. "Some people go around thinkin' about dyin', but I expect to live forever. I think that's a good way to be."

Shaver fans will recognize the sentiment, which he expresses in his 1993 song "Live Forever," one of the few songs (there aren't even 10) on which he has ever shared writing credits with anyone. In the song, Shaver and his late son, Eddy Shaver, that co-writer, sing:

Nobody here will ever find me

But I will always be around

Just like the songs I leave behind me

I'm gonna live forever now.

Like Nelson and Merle Haggard, Shaver is one of the surviving creators of what was once called "outlaw country," so named as much for its creators' rebellion against the ruling class in Nashville, Tenn., as for their run-ins with the law. But unlike Nelson and Haggard, superstardom has eluded Shaver, who's much better known for having written all of the songs except one on a Waylon Jennings album, Honky Tonk Heroes.

And then there's Shaver's song "I'm Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I'm Gonna Be a Diamond Someday)," which is also the title of an album he released in 1981. The song became a No. 4 hit for John Anderson, and surely it was also a financial pleasure for Shaver, even though most singer-songwriters derive far more pleasure when they rack up hit songs in their own name.

But Shaver, a Texan, is not one to complain, not even about the hard knocks he has sustained in his life. He dealt with the deaths of his mother, wife and son all in one 12-month period. He had been married three times to his wife, Brenda. His son, Eddy, who played a fiery electric guitar in his dad's band, died of an overdose of heroin on New Year's Eve 2000. (Anyone who saw a performance by the Shavers at Juanita's in the early 1990s witnessed firsthand Eddy Shaver's musical talent, and any troubles weren't evident.)

Shaver and his son had been scheduled to play a gig near Austin, Texas, that New Year's Eve, and Billy Joe Shaver dealt with his grief the way he knew best -- by going ahead with the show, aided by his pal Willie Nelson.

Besides a life devoted to writing songs and singing them, Shaver also has a way with unsung words. In 2005, the University of Texas Press published his autobiography, Honky Tonk Hero, which features a cover photo of a younger Shaver, smiling and standing in a doorway flanked on both sides by signs that read "Do not stand in doorway."

And he's still contemplating a long-promised book of poetry, except for one thing.

"Sometimes I reach in there and grab one and make a song out of it," he laughs. "That's where 'Get Thee Behind Me Satan' came from, on my 2008 album, Everybody's Brother. I need to do that though; I've got so many of them poems."

As if writing was not enough to keep him busy, he has also done some acting, in movies and for TV. His friend Robert Duvall has cast him in several movies, most recently Wild Horses, a crime drama released in 2015.

"And I did a thing recently with Billy Ray Cyrus, Still the King, which is a comedy," he adds. "I think they called it a 'pilot,' where it might get made as a sitcom, or it might not."

Shaver -- who has become a big fan of playing at the White Water Tavern -- had to postpone a Little Rock show a couple of years ago due to a health emergency. He was in so much pain he thought he needed a hip replacement. It turned out to be his back; he had surgery and was up and around in two weeks.

"I've got so much metal inside, you could junk me and get more than I'm worth," Shaver says. "I've gotten stents, a four-way bypass, two new knees and have screws in my shoulders. It hurts, but I can stand the pain. You have to have a certain amount of pain to remind you that you're alive."

Style on 02/14/2016