Country music singer Billy Joe Shaver was born in 1939 in Texas. Shaver grew up in Corsicana, raised by a single mother and his grandmother. Billy Joe’s mom used to sometimes bring him with her on her night job, which was at a local nightclub. It was there that Billy Joe fell in love with country music, although it would be later in life that he would find success as an entertainer.

With few professional prospects in his town, Billy Joe joined the United States Navy when he turned seventeen and completed a tour of duty. After discharging from the military, Shaver took up a bunch of dead-end jobs, trying to make ends meet and support his new wife and son. The marriage didn’t last either, though, and to make matters even worse, Billy Joe suffered a serious injury one day on his job at a lumber mill, ultimately losing two of his fingers.

Few would imagine that this is where Shaver’s destiny would turn, but it did. He taught himself to play guitar without those fingers and—against all odds—set out for Nashville to try to make his name in the music business. A few gigs as a songwriter eventually garnered him some attention from Waylon Jennings, who used multiple songs by Billy Joe on his album Honky Tonk Heroes. Next came writing gigs for Kris Kristofferson and Elvis Presley, and the rest—as they say—is history.

Billy Joe Shaver went on to become one of country music’s most notable “outlaw country” performers. His debut album, Old five and Dimers Like Me, arrived in 1973 and set the stage for a series of other albums which have since gone on to become classics, such as: When I Get My Wings (1976), Gypsy Boy (1977), Tramp on Your Street (1993), and the Grammy-nominated country gospel album Everybody’s Brother (2007.) Shaver’s music has also been featured in a number of films, including Crazy Heart, in which his song “Live Forever” was performed.

With a career more than four decades long at this point, Billy Joe Shaver is still going strong, still performing and recording regularly. In 2004, the documentary A Portrait of Billy Joe, which explores his life and career, was released. A few years later, Billy Joe co-starred in the television movie Bait Shop, alongside Bill Engvall and Billy Ray Cyrus. Most recently, Billy Joe’s album Long in the Tooth (2014) became his first to reach into the top ten on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.

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