Steve Earle and Billy Joe Shaver are both grizzled singer
songwriters who have influenced scores of performers. We had the privilege of seeing them both,
separately, last week. Earle played at
the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, which takes up the third floor
of an old warehouse overlooking the river with floor to ceiling windows, wood
floors, and an art gallery. The audience
is encouraged to bring picnic baskets and coolers, creating a festive
atmosphere. Billy Joe Shaver was at the
Channing Unitarian Church in Newport, built in the 1880’s. The stone walls, handcrafted wood balustrades,
and soaring, painted ceilings were evidence that this was meant to be a holy
place, indeed. Picnic baskets were not
welcome here, of course, and the church was all sanctuary, such that if you
wanted to go to the bathroom, you had to
go outside and be led to the separate church office via flashlight. While
the Earle show was packed and the Shaver show barely registered 100 people, the
crowds were equally fervent.
I was struck by how these two performers were so similar and
so different. They both write from the heart
but where Earle is intellectual and political, Billy is strictly a honky tonk
guy. They have both found their dharma
in writing, singing and playing with clarity and honesty in a particular genre
that has room for both of them.
Romantic love was not the focus for either performer. Instead, both talked about love of country,
love of God, and love of drugs. Earle is
unabashedly and unrepentantly liberal.
On stage, he said, “Obama is not a socialist. I’m a socialist.” Because of this statement, conservatives
might paint him as unpatriotic, but his point is this: the promise of the United States is that
everyone will have equal opportunity. Earle’s
critiques of the system (and he has many, including the death penalty) does not
mean he is against the United States; he just feels we are not living up to the
promise of equality and freedom for everyone.
Billy Joe Shaver represents old-school patriotism, claiming
in the song “Good Ol’ USA” that he has been around the world, and, pointing vehemently
to the ground, the United States is the best place in it. He didn’t talk about the recent election,
like Earle did. Instead, his loyalty to
the U.S., specifically, Texas, was just as unabashed and unrepentant as Earle’s
commitment to social justice. Shaver
took care not to alienate anyone in the audience (at least on a patriotic
level), unlike Earle.
Both singer songwriters also talked about religion in ways
that matched their stance on patriotism.
While Earle didn’t sing the song “God is God” (I believe in God/and God
is God) he talked about how the death penalty was a violation of the Ten
Commandments. Because he is a citizen of
this country, where the death penalty is legal in many states, he feels that he
is implicated. Therefore he speaks out,
in songs, (“Billy Austin” and “Ellis Unit One”) and in outreach to prisoners on
death row. Whatever you want to say
about Steve Earle, he follows through on his beliefs.
Shaver, once again, took a more direct approach. He said that Jesus was his hero, and thanked
God for giving him the gift of songwriting.
Some of his songs have specific mentions of God, and he clearly
acknowledged that he was singing in a church.
Both performers have experienced and enjoyed the dark side and told
those tales in their music, yet their spirituality was also apparent. Earle’s approach was finely tuned, whereas for
Shaver it’s just not that complicated.
Going along with the joy of spirituality and surrender to a
Divine spirit is what Jung calls the “shadow” side. Both performers have songs about hell-raising
(Earle, “The Week of Living Dangerously” and “Copperhead Road” and Shaver,
“Tramp on Your Street” and “The Hottest Thing in Town”) and are not ashamed to
talk about it or write about it. Even as
some of their earlier work celebrates a hedonistic lifestyle, and they still
sing those songs, they acknowledge the dangers, especially of heroin. On stage, Earle talked about the powerful
force of his own addiction. He noted
that his family members and friends were pretty sure he would die an addict, as
was he. He then launched into “South
Nashville Blues” with the lyric “I went downtown just to ease my pain/I took my
pistol and a hundred dollar bill/I had everything I needed to get me killed.”
Earle lost years off of his life that he will never get
back. Shaver lost his son Eddy, who
played guitar for several famous groups and had also been in Shaver’s
band. In one of the few sobering moments
of the show, Shaver dedicated a song to all the people who had either
experienced addiction or knew someone who had.
He sang a shaky a capella song while the guys in his band turned around
and removed their cowboy hats. Shaver’s
sincerity and sense of loss were as touching as Earle’s matter-of-factness was transfixing.
Steve Earle is 57 and Billy Joe Shaver is 73. For both, writing and performing is salvation. Where Earle is serious and nuanced, Shaver is
joyful and straightforward. Where Earle
is troubled, Shaver is delighted. Both
have clearly found their dharma, or their calling, and it was a privilege to
see them in action last week. Their
songwriting and performing are exemplars of what the arts can tell us about the
human condition, and thus so much more than an evening’s entertainment.
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