Billy Joe Shaver
"Everybody's Brother"
Compadre Records

In the same way soul music combines gospel and the blues, Billy Joe Shaver blends the sacred and the profane in "Everybody's Brother" with his own brand of gospel honky tonk.

It's not shtick for the 67-year-old Shaver; it's how he's lived his surprisingly long life. He's been singing about Jesus since he was an abandoned kid and presumably more than ever since his arrest in April for shooting a man outside a Texas bar.

The album is an uneven but powerfully heartfelt mix of songs and guests, produced by John Carter Cash, son of Shaver's longtime pal and patron, Johnny Cash.

It comes out swinging with a rocking duet with John Anderson on "Get Thee Behind Me Satan." After the soft, swaying "Most Precious," Shaver is joined by Marty Stuart on a jumping "Winning Again" and by Kris Kristofferson, whose old-man voice is wonderfully shot, on the dark "No Earthly Good." Later, Tanya Tucker kicks in on the barroom shuffler "Played the Game too Long."

Oddest of all is the surprisingly effective 7-minute title track, a combination of Shaver's eerie preacher vocals over a droning church organ beginning and ending with Bill Miller's Native American cedar flute, chanting and pow-wow drums.

The album ends sweetly with the rocking "You Just Can't Beat Jesus Christ," a duet with Johnny Cash recorded in 1970 with Shaver's 15-year-old son, Eddy, playing guitar.