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Billy Joe Shaver, the hard-living, prodigious singer-songwriter who helped define the outlaw country genre of the 1970s, is dead at 81.
The musician passed away Wednesday from a stroke at a Waco, Texas, hospital, his friend Connie Nelson confirmed to Rolling Stone.
Composer of some of country music’s most lasting songs, including “Honky Tonk Heroes,” “Live Forever” and “Georgia on a Fast Train,” Shaver was presented with a lifetime achievement award by The Americana Music Association in 2004, noted Variety.
Before Shaver hit the big time with the release of his 1973 debut album “Old Five and Dimers Like Me,” singer-actor Kris Kristofferson recorded Shaver’s song “Good Christian Soldier” for his critically acclaimed album “The Silver-Tongued Devil and I.”
Later, superstars Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson and Patty Loveless would record renditions of Shaver’s songs, and Waylon Jennings recorded 10 Shaver songs for his 1973 album “Honky Tonk Heroes.”
“His songs were of a piece, and the only way you could ever understand Billy Joe was to hear his whole body of work,” said Jennings of Shaver’s compositions.
Born in Corsicana, Texas, in 1939, Shaver’s rough-and-tumble personal life would influence his songwriting.
As a youth, he severed part of two fingers in a sawmill accident.
“When I cut my fingers off, I made a deal with God,” Shaver told CMT in 2012. “I said, ‘If you get me out of this, I will go on and do what I am supposed to do.”
He also married — and divorced — Brenda Tindell three times and wed Wanda Lynn Canady twice, according to Variety.
In 1994, Loveless made Shaver’s “When the Fallen Angels Fly” the title track of her album. The following year, the LP won the Country Music Association’s album of the year award.
“I’m saddened to learn that Billy Joe Shaver has passed away. Billy Joe opened for me on one of my early tours and was always amazing,” tweeted country star Travis Tritt on Wednesday. “His stories were captivating. He will be sorely missed. My condolences go out to his family, friends and fans.”
The supergroup The Highwaymen — consisting of Johnny Cash, Nelson, Jennings and Kristofferson — recorded a version of Shaver’s “Live Forever” for its 1995 album “The Road Goes on Forever.”
In 2000, Shaver’s guitarist son Eddy fatally overdosed on heroin.
Four years later, Shaver suffered a heart attack on stage. And in 2007, he shot a man in the face in Lorena, Texas, for which he was acquitted.
“Hit him right between the mother and the f—–,” Shaver later joked of the incident. “Fixed him right up.”
Shaver, a longtime friend of Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall, appeared in two of the actor’s films: “The Apostle” and “Secondhand Lions.”