Billy Joe Shaver, singer-songwriter who inspired outlaw country, dies at 81

Billy Joe Shaver, a hardscrabble Texas singer-songwriter whose earthy and haunting lyrics helped inspire the “outlaw” movement in country music, died Oct. 28 at a hospital in Waco. He was 81.

His friend Connie Nelson told the Associated Press that the cause was a stroke. Mr. Shaver also had a fall in September and had been diagnosed over the summer with the novel coronavirus. He had a history of health problems, including a heart attack onstage in 2001.