These days, it seems like a lot of older country musicians are
\nfinding religion. I don’t know if Johnny Cash had been singing
\nsongs like “Why Me Lord” before
\nAmerican Recordings<\/i>, but his delivery made it sound like he
\nmeant every word he was singing. It was not overtly religious –
\nthough I go to church every week, I don’t like being hit over the
\nhead by what I call “Jesus-freak” messages – but it was enough to
\nmake you think.<\/p>\n
Same goes for Billy Joe Shaver, one of the founders of outlaw
\ncountry music. After spending a lifetime imbibed with drink and
\ndrug, a near death experience brought his life and actions back
\ninto focus. One result of this is the latest release from Shaver,
\nVictory<\/i>, an album featuring Shaver and his son Eddy.<\/p>\n
If you’re not into the religion thing, but you like folk-based
\ncountry, you might want to put your biases on the side for the 37
\nminutes this disc plays, and just take in the music itself. Both
\nfather and son are competent musicians (Eddy is excellent on the
\ndobro), while Billy Joe proves that time hasn’t taken any power out
\nof his vocals. The opening a capella piece “Son Of Cavalry” is a
\nbit shaky without any instrumentation, but it is an emotional raw
\nnerve that had to be brought to the forefront to kick this project
\noff.<\/p>\n
Not all of the music on
\nVictory<\/i> has overt religious tones. “Cowboy Who Started The
\nFight” almost reminds me of the late Townes Van Zandt in Shaver’s
\nability to paint a picture with the story he tells. Likewise, “Old
\nFive And Dimers” appears to be somewhat autobiographical, and if
\nanything, is too short.<\/p>\n
When Shaver does turn to a more spiritual side of his music, the
\nresults are often quite good. “You Can’t Beat Jesus Christ” is a
\nlittle hokey as a “praise-the-Lord” song, while tracks like “When
\nThe Fallen Angels Fly” and “If I Give My Soul” sing of a man who’s
\nwasted his life hoping for one more chance to prove himself worthy.
\nThese tracks pull on your heart strings, whatever your view of God
\nis, and are quite enjoyable.<\/p>\n
For the most part, the key word to describe
\nVictory<\/i> is emotion. You can hear the happiness in “I’m In
\nLove” and “Live Forever”; you can hear the fear in “If I Give My
\nSoul”. If Shaver has accomplished anything with this album, he has
\nlaid his life out clearly, and makes all his emotions felt by the
\nlistener.<\/p>\n
The two shorter numbers that close out
\nVictory<\/i>, “Presents From The Past” and “The Bow And The
\nArrow,” are not of the same caliber as the bulk of the album, but
\nare worth investigating nonetheless.<\/p>\n
And to be frank, I usually don’t look forward to listening to
\nalbums with religious underpinnings; I always expect them to be
\npreachy and boring. To Shaver’s credit, both father and son keep
\nthings exciting from beginning to end, and show just how good the
\ncountry genre can be – even if they are talking about God in many
\nof the tracks.<\/p>\n
It took a moment of staring death in the face for Shaver to come
\nup with the life experience that started
\nVictory<\/i> as a project; for that, we should be thankful that
\nsuch an album exists.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7412],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-39298","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-shaver","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39298"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}