I was sitting under a shade tree just outside of Nashville one hot summer day in 1987, fingers kinda running over the strings of my old flat top guitar, talking to my friend Billy Joe Shaver about songs, about lost romance, about how the Road will wear you out, about...........Billy, how the heck did you lose your fingers, son? Billy Joe looked down at his right hand, stretched it out in front of him and studied the two short stubs that was all that remained of his two middle fingers. "I got in an accident in a sawmill where I worked.....I remember I realized when it happened...God, I know what I’m supposed to be doin’.....when they got cut off I got down and gathered my fingers together and took them over to the Doctor’s office....see if they could put them back on. Doctor looked at ‘em and said naw, man, they all mangled up from gettin’ hung in the chain. I remember there was a colored nurse there and she wanted them....I asked her what in the world did she want ‘em for, and she said," "Aw, I’m gonna put ‘em in a jar"." So my fingers are probably still sittin’ up on a shelf somewhere down in Texas....floatin' around in a jar of vinegar, or something. After I got my fingers cut off...I started playing the guitar and writing real hard, ‘cause I knew that was what I was supposed to be doing."
Yeah buddy, I reckon you did Billy Joe...."Old Chunk Of Coal" for John Anderson, "Honky Tonk Heroes" and a whole album full of songs for Waylon and one of my favorites..."I Been To Georgia On A Fast Train".
Sittin’ there kinda ruminating on Billy Joe’s lost fingers....I made a remark about how he and I had seen a lot of strange things happen in this business of music.....and I ended the thought with, "And Billy Joe, we didn’t come to town on a truck load of watermelons, no sir, we been around some." Billy Joe glanced up at me and said, "Nope, it was a truck full of cantaloupes." I could see he was serious, and I asked him what he was talking about. "Well, I had left Texas with about 5 dollars and I got as far as Memphis when I ran out of money and a ride. I was hitchhikin’ on to Nashville and a truck full of cantaloupes stopped and gave me a ride, and I had to sit in the back with all those melons. When I got to Nashville and started knocking on doors on Music Row, trying to talk to people about my songs, they all kept looking at each other and saying, ""What’s that smell?"" I smelled like a cantaloupe patch for a month after that."
Billy Joe Shaver is a man who has lived some, and survived to tell us about it in his music. I love him ‘cause he’s real
That’s what is so fascinating about this world of creative people, yes, they have a special talent but inside they are just real folk, with real stories to tell.
I was sitting under a shade tree just outside of Nashville one hot summer day in 1987, fingers kinda running over the strings of my old flat top guitar, talking to my friend Billy Joe Shaver about songs, about lost romance, about how the Road will wear you out, about...........Billy, how the heck did you lose your fingers, son? Billy Joe looked down at his right hand, stretched it out in front of him and studied the two short stubs that was all that remained of his two middle fingers. "I got in an accident in a sawmill where I worked.....I remember I realized when it happened...God, I know what I’m supposed to be doin’.....when they got cut off I got down and gathered my fingers together and took them over to the Doctor’s office....see if they could put them back on. Doctor looked at ‘em and said naw, man, they all mangled up from gettin’ hung in the chain. I remember there was a colored nurse there and she wanted them....I asked her what in the world did she want ‘em for, and she said," "Aw, I’m gonna put ‘em in a jar"." So my fingers are probably still sittin’ up on a shelf somewhere down in Texas....floatin' around in a jar of vinegar, or something. After I got my fingers cut off...I started playing the guitar and writing real hard, ‘cause I knew that was what I was supposed to be doing."