"Live Forever" video

"Freedom's Child" video

Hi-Res Publicity Photo

Listen to exclusive Shaver music on the ComPodcast

"...my favorite songwriter." – Johnny Cash

"He’s as real a writer as Hemingway." – Kris Kristofferson

"When the country outlaws were collecting their holy writings, Billy Joe Shaver was carving out Exodus." - Washington Post

For the first time in his four-decade career, Billy Joe Shaver fans can find eighteen of his most popular songs in one place when Compadre Records releases Greatest Hits on April 3, 2007.

Outlaw poet laureate Billy Joe Shaver has had his songs covered by an impressive list of performers including Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, George Jones, Bob Dylan and The Allman Brothers Band, to name a few. Waylon Jennings' 1973 Honky Tonk Heroes album, widely credited for launching the Outlaw movement in country music, featured ten of Shaver's compositions. While other artists have been successful singing their versions of Shaver's tunes, no one can deliver the lines with as much soul and honesty as the writer himself. The five-time Grammy nominee was recently crowned with the Songwriter Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Country superstar duo Big & Rich, longtime Shaver fans, co-produced their duet with Shaver on his inspirational masterpiece "Live Forever." Shaver's son, Eddy, who passed away tragically in 2000, posthumously teams up with his dad on "Step On Up." Greatest Hits features "Try and Try Again," Shaver's fervent reminder about the power of persistence, and the previously unreleased "Melody," which was produced by roots music producing legend R.S. Field. "I Couldn't Be Me Without You" and "Ride Me Down Easy" were recorded during Shaver's 2006 concert at London's Luminaire. They showcase Shaver's one of a kind on-stage storytelling and give background on the songs that other artists took to the top of the Country Music singles chart. "Light A Candle For Me" is a new song recorded during the sessions for Shaver's most recent album, The Real Deal.

A best-of collection of Shaver's songs wouldn't be complete without his biographical roadhouse romp, "Georgia on a Fast Train," and his message of redemption, "Old Chunk of Coal" ("Old Chunk of Coal" is featured in the new Ashley Judd movie, Come Early Morning). Greatest Hits is a perfect primer for new Billy Joe Shaver fans and a must-have for lifeline devotees.