The generation gap only underscored the two distinctly different songwriting styles of Charlie Robison and Billy Joe Shaver, as they took to New York City's Village Underground last night for an evening of good, dirty roadhouse country. The two collections of songs presented by Shaver and Robison reflect the greater scope of Texas "country" music within two streams of creativity not pioneered, but perhaps perfected by the state's two songwriting deans: Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

Robison's opening, hour-long set was comprised of songs from his two most recent recordings, 1999's Life of the Party and the just released Step Right Up. Like Clark, Robison's songs have a strong narrative drive, but they also have much in common with a well-framed photograph: an acute sense of detail that can capture the thousand words of a snapshot in a few short verses. That's not to say that the two aforementioned styles are mutually exclusive. Robison's finest song, "The Preacher," masterfully fuses his tale-telling talent with a cryptic soul-search that bucks the standard narrative progression: "But that preacher died there with all of my lies/And my sins went with him when they put him in the hole." But Robison's settings and characters are his go-to guy, and the set-closing "John O'Reilly" was a twirling dandy of a double-crossing boxing tale that bounds over the Atlantic and across the states, capped off with a spectral legend.

In contrast to Robison's outward creativity, Shaver defines himself through internalization. To say he is of a Van Zandt school of songwriting is foolish, as the two men are of an age, and their sounds couldn't be more different: Shaver taking his cue from roadhouse blues and honky-tonk, Van Zandt owing more to country blues and folk. But unlike Robison's snapshots of Texana, Shaver's songs are about turning himself inside out, his portraits comprise a perpetual travelogue, both spiritual and physical, as he makes sense of his successes and many failures with a humble grace: be it his reckless, randy past with a black hooker ("Black Rose"), his reckless, randy past with a New York guitarist ("New York City Girl") or the "screw you" defiance that arises following his reckless, randy past in Amarillo ("Leaving Amarillo").

Shaver's string of bad luck is the stuff of legend: losing several fingers in a sawmill accident, multiple divorces, rampant record label disasters and dumpings, and then a three-punch combination of tragedy in the past two years with the death of his mother and his wife (both to cancer) and the December 31st death of his son, and musical soulmate, Eddy (of a drug overdose). His music, again, serves as a therapy. A few songs in, Shaver played "Star In My Heart," a track from his new album, The Earth Rolls On, which he wrote for his son before his death, claiming that it would be the sole mention of the incident. Performed with just his voice and an honest, poorly strummed guitar, the song was beautifully unbearable ("Though we're many worlds apart/I'm still your friend"), a delicate remembrance that has acquired a prophetic tone.

The evening was full of such chilling and thrilling moments. That Shaver weaves songs out of the fabric of his life is nothing new. From his childhood ("Georgia on a Fast Train," "Tramp on Your Street") to honky tonk glory (much of his Seventies output), Shaver's catalog reads like an autobiography. But this night the songs' edges felt almost uncomfortably sharper; the sights clear, the smells keen and the emotions naked. The first lines of "Try and Try Again" (a previously forgettable track from 1998's Electric Shaver) were altered from "I went up on the mountain and I looked down on my life/I had squandered all my money and lost my faithful wife" to ". . . and lost my son and wife." A minor change, sure, but during the final wails of "try and try again" the syrupy twang left Shaver, and his voice took on a disturbing roar that sounded eerily like Howlin' Wolf -- or the anguished roar of Job -- and left the room without sound. The exorcism complete, he quickly returned to his body, making jokes at the expense of his missing digits and his past. The hurt shows, but Shaver refuses to be consumed by it. He was, after all, born to a woman named Victory.

Robison and Shaver make an interesting set of counterparts, as the trajectory of both men could have been similar, two Texas hellions with loose lips. But in his mid-thirties, "Good Time" Charlie has gotten some of his ya-ya's out and looks to have a vision for his career. With a comfy home on Lucky Dog/Columbia (a forward-thinking major label that realized that efficiency can be profitable), Robison seems sheltered from Shaver's doomed history of shitty label dealings.

As for Shaver, despite the ups and plentiful downs, he again proved that his legacy is well preserved. With songs (and phrases) like "Honky Tonk Heroes" and "Old Five and Dimers Like Me," he effortlessly and single-handedly created the vernacular for honky tonk outlaw music. David Allan Coe would trade his beloved stint in the clink for that gift. With his bluesy, boozy swagger and pool hall romance, Shaver also played a substantial role in re-defining honky tonk style for post-Sixties country.

Despite the fact that the creative pools for Waylon, Willie and the boys have dried or are drying up, Shaver's work remains full of vibrancy and vitality even entering his fourth decade of songwriting; in the past ten years he's produced no fewer than three splendid recordings (1993's Tramp on Your Street, 1995's Highway of Life and this year's The Earth Rolls On). Too many fans of hard country are still traipsing through the merry land of Oz unaware that many of the honky tonk sounds they revere were created, or at least influenced, by the grizzled wizard behind the curtain.

ANDREW DANSBY
(May 16, 2001)