Billy Joe Shaver signed this for me after a show at Joe's Pub in New York City a couple years ago. I've seen Billy Joe play live several times over the past fifteen years and he still puts on one of the best shows in the business--he's always got a kicking band and he always has a good time on stage. When my wife and I met Billy, the first thing he did was give my wife a huge hug, which I thought was pretty funny, then I handed him this record to sign and he pretended to run off with it before coming back to the merchandise table to sign it. His signature itself is amusing in that it takes up half the record.
It was a lot of fun getting Billy Joe's autograph and meeting him! This experience really turned me on to autograph collecting with you.
ReplyDeleteWas this before or after he asked the drunk at the bar, "where do you want it?" and shot him in the face?
ReplyDeleteAfter. The shooting incident was in April of 2007 and I got this signed in September of that same year. I wonder if Billy Joe served any time for that.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to say that as of yesterday Billy Joe walks free in the great state of Texas. He got off for shooting a man in the face behind a honytonk. Plead self defense as the other guy had a knife...kept in his pocket.
ReplyDeleteWhen I met Billy Joe he explained that his song Black Maria was not about heroin, as I thought, but rather about his initiation into manhood by black prostitute in Waco, a Texas tradition he colorfully, explained.
I'm very glad he was acquitted, though it does sound to me like he could have avoided the incident and not gotten stabbed. Is Black Maria the same song as Black Rose? If not, then they both have very similar themes. I love talking to Billy Joe -- he's a one-in-a-million personality.
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah, that is the song I meant! So we watched a documentary that I wonder if you've seen--"Desperate Man Blues" about a pre-War record collector in Maryland. Your hero? I thought he was pretty awesome until he talked about being buried with the only existing copy of a blues record--why deny the world that?!
ReplyDeleteYou must be talking about Joe Bussard. I didn't realize that there was a documentary on him -- I'll have to find it. This is a really entertaining article on him that was in the City Paper about ten years ago. It has the same title -- I wonder if it inspired the film. I love everything Eddie Dean writes.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/16690/desperate-man-blues