Electric Shaver

Performer Notes
:

Shaver includes: Billy Joe Shaver, Eddy Shaver.

Personnel: Billy Joe Shaver (vocals); Eddy Shaver (guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 12-string guitar, slide guitar, midi guitar); Ray Kennedy (12-string guitar, dobro, mandolin, percussion, background vocals); Mickey Raphael (harmonica); Jim Hoke (accordion); David Crockett (drums, percussion); Danny Flowers, Dennis Morgan , Damon Gray, Tom Littlefield, Michael Smotherman (background vocals).

Audio Mixer: Ray Kennedy.

Liner Note Author: Kinky Friedman.

Recording information: Room And Board Studios, Nashville, TN.

The title says it all. After several years of acoustic-based country, Billy Joe Shaver and his son Eddy have decided to up the ampage and deliver Electric Shaver. Theoretically, this is a good concept, but too much of the record sounds forced, as if blues-rock licks were grafted onto outlaw honky tonk backing tracks. Such grandstanding tends to obscure the songs, but then again, the rocking tracks on Electric Shaver aren't particularly strong, either. The opening pair of "Thunderbird" and "Try and Try Again" are clich‚-ridden and awkward, two things Shaver has never been. However, things start looking up around the charming shuffle "New York City." From that point on (with an exception or two), things are laid-back and natural. The songs resonate and the performances are organic, not forced. As the Cajun-flavored "Manual Labor," the honky tonk ballad "I'll Be Here," the swinging "Way Down Texas Way," and Eddy's sweet midtempo country-pop tune "Heart to Heart" indicate, the Shavers are at their best when they let things flow, since the results are unself-consciously eclectic and quite charming. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Professional Reviews
: Entertainment Weekly (5/7/99, p.65) - "...Shaver crafts such emotionally resonant vignette of beautiful losers that even the most stoic listener will weep by record's end....and....it kicks up plenty of down-home highway grime..." - Rating: B-
Dirty Linen (2-3/00, pp.92-3) - "...a country record that cuts deep into the blues and rock, especially with Eddy Shaver's guitar....One of the best records yet from one of country's most important songwriters and performers." Producer
: Ray Kennedy, Cameron Strang Format
: CD (1 Disc); Stereo Country
: USA Studio/Live
: Studio Release Date
: 1 May, 1999 Label
: New West Records Dimensions
: 12.5 x 14.2 x 1 centimeters (0.03 kg)

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