Shaver Electric Shaver

At first glance the laconic, laid-back country songwriter Billy Joe Shaver and his guitar-slingin', supercharged blues-rocker son Eddy would seem to make an unlikely musical duo. But, like on 1996's high-powered Tramp on Your Street and 1998's acoustic and introspective Victory, the Shavers once again manage to meld their seemingly antithetical musical personalities in a manner that's raw, powerful, and utterly moving. Billy Joe, who wrote or cowrote 11 of the 12 cuts on Electric Shaver, is a sort of footloose, back-street Texas poet-pilgrim whose greatest original songs infuse the stark imagery of sun-baked losers and outlaws with homespun earnestness and spiritual yearning. While at times the elder Shaver tended to be an indifferent, occasionally off-key singer, Eddy has proved the perfect antidote to his dad's occasional vocal lethargy. On tunes such as the supercharged gospel shout "Try and Try Again," the Tex-Mex working-man's lament "Manual Labor," and even a somber spiritual ode called "Slave at the Feet of the Queen," Eddy's searing electric lead work gooses Billy Joe's vocals to new levels of expressiveness. --Bob Allen