50th anniversary of a "successful failure," the Dripping Springs Reunion
Billy Joe Shaver's life- and country music- changed on the Hurlbut Ranch in 1972
“Outlaw country” and “grunge” both started on the same ranch 35 miles west of Austin. The Dripping Springs Reunion and Woodshock took place on the Hurlbut Ranch 13 years apart.
Here’s my Woodshock ‘85 chapter.
The three-day DS Reunion was supposed to be the country music Woodstock in March 1972, with crowds of 60,000 a day expected for a mix of country legends- Buck Owens, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Roy Acuff, Hank Snow, Earl Scruggs, etc.- with scruffy country favorites Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Roger Miller and Tom T. Hall in the middle. Tickets were $10, or $25 for all three days, but even at that bargain, a total of only 20,000 came through the gates. The crowd for Friday’s bluegrass lineup, including Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs was a paltry 2,000. Biggest day was Sunday, with Willie, Kris and Waylon playing to 12,000.
Sometimes the best festivals are financial flops. All that breathing room came at great cost, but what music! It was “a successful failure,” according to Mike McFarland, one of the four promoters from Dallas, who actually planned (then cancelled) a second, scaled-down, Reunion in Sept. ‘72 as a benefit for the first one!
The rock festival format apparently didn’t appeal to hardcore country fans, who preferred seating and shade and plumbing, and the cosmic cowboy craze hadn’t really kicked in yet. Willie wouldn’t move to Austin for another three months. Promoters spent their money on talent and production, depending on sponsor Coca- Cola to get the word out. Most of Austin wasn’t aware of the fest until Townsend Miller raved about it in the Statesman as “an all-day picnic with singing on the grounds.”
Willie Nelson picked up on that vibe when he brought his first Fourth of July Picnic to Hurlbut Ranch the next year because the infrastructure was in place. Those poor Dallas guys even had to drill a well.
Those on hand in March ‘72 witnessed history, in not only the coexistence of classic and progressive country, but the stage debut of Billy Joe Shaver.
Unbilled and unscheduled, Waco native Shaver was only there because Nashville singer songwriter Sharon Rucker (the future Mrs. Harlan Howard) didn’t want to make the drive alone. Shaver had moved to Nashville months earlier and got his first cut as a songwriter when Kristofferson put “Good Christian Soldier” on his 1971 album The Silver-Tongued Devil and I. It was the first time Kris had ever recorded a song he didn’t write.
Kristofferson had to practically shove Billy Joe, who didn’t consider himself a performer and had never even played clubs, onto the Dripping Springs stage to sing a couple songs. Bobby Bare, who had hired Shaver for his song publishing company, warned him to not, under any circumstances, sing “that interracial song or the rednecks’ll kill you.” Of course, Shaver did “Black Rose,” sitting on a chair so his nervous knees wouldn’t knock together. When he got to “Well the devil made me do it the first time/ the second time I done it on my own,” the crowd roared and gave Shaver a standing ovation at the end of the song. “I'd never felt better in my whole life," he said in 1994. "I tried to leave the stage, but Tex Ritter grabbed ahold of my ear and yanked me back up." I’m not any good, he told Ritter (UT Class of ‘29), who just pointed to the still-clapping crowd, and said, “you’re marked for greatness.”
Billy Joe ended up doing about 14 more songs, and then held court in a backstage trailer playing some more, including “Willie the Wanderin’ Gypsy and Me,” which caused Jennings to poke his head in. “Do you have any more of them cowboy songs?” Jennings asked, and when Shaver said “I have a whole sack full of 'em,” Waylon said if they’re as good as that “Wanderin’ Willie” song he’d record a whole album of them. Considering Jennings “the greatest singer in country music, ever,” Shaver felt that he’d finally arrived.
But back in Nashville, Waylon wouldn’t return Billy Joe’s calls. This went on for a couple months. Frustrated and broke, Billy Joe finally found Waylon in the hall of a recording studio late at night. “I told him that if he didn’t make good on his promise to record my songs, I’d whip his ass right there in front of God and everybody,” recalled Shaver, a notorious street fighter. “I was so pissed off I didn’t even notice these two big biker bodyguards at his side.” Before the two could pounce on Shaver, Jennings raised a halting hand and sat down with the fuming songwriter, assuring him that his album was next. They shook hands, then then Waylon asked Billy Joe if he knew just how close he came to getting a major ass-whipping, as the Hell’s Angels laughed.
When Jennings recorded Honky Tonk Heroes in 1973, he broke so many rules that the album turned into one of the opening salvos of outlaw country, along with Willie’s Shotgun Willie, which had come out two weeks earlier on Atlantic, and Jerry Jeff’s Viva Terlingua at the end of the year. Besides singing nine tracks by an unproven songwriter, Jennings insisted on using his own touring band in the studio. The result was a record that holds up like Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Honky Tonk Heroes wasn’t a big hit, but it continues to influence, not just in the material, but in the manner it was made. “There’s always one more way to do things,” Waylon said, “and that’s your own way.”
Billy Joe Shaver, who passed away in Oct. 2020 at age 81, went on to become the poet laureate of Texas country, a writer like Tom Waits who could sum up so much with a single line. "There's a lot of rough ol' boys down in Texas who might look at singin' and songwritin' as a weaker profession. So we give it to 'em tough," said Bubba Shaver, who signed his poems in the high school paper using his real name as a disguise. "Plus there's that pride. Guys like me and Rodney Crowell and Guy Clark would be embarrassed to write a bad song, no matter how much money it made."