Tag: Billy Joe Shaver

Stetson and Mitra Khayyam Create Custom Waylon Jennings Hat

Posted on by Editor

Waylon Jennings devotees know that the outlaw country pioneer was a bit of a devotee himself … to Stetson hats. Now, fans can get their own recreation of the Stetson hat Jennings wore on the cover of his 1979 Greatest Hits collection.

Stetson teamed up with the Waylon Jennings Estate, clothing company Midnight Rider, and Midnight Rider's Creative Director Mitra Khayyam to create "The Lash," a custom Stetson that incorporates all of the details from that original Jennings hat. 

"The Lash" is made of 6x fur felt, a slightly upturned brim, a braided outer band, and a roan leather inner sweat band embossed with Jennings' signature and "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys." The collaboration, which has been in the works since 2012, was recently released for purchase to the public.

"Working with Stetson has been a real treat," Khayyam says. "I had the opportunity to design the hat from the ground up with their team. They were true to every detail — from the sweatband with 'My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys' stamped on it with foil to matching the leather braided hat band to Waylon's original. Stetson's team knew that Waylon's fans would want a hat they could both wear and keep as a collector's piece, and worked with me to ensure that customers were getting quality and authenticity in their product."

Khayyam, whose Midnight Rider manages all merchandise licensing for Jennings, initially connected with Jennings' team via Twitter. "I was the founder and curator of the artist-based clothing line Blood Is the New Black (since sold) and Shooter Jennings, Waylon's son, was a fan of the line," she explains. "We became 'Twitter friends' and, after a few months, he sent me a message asking if I'd be interested in being Waylon's merchandising manager."

Khayyam keeps pretty busy these days, as Midnight Rider's licensing collection continues to grow. "We currently hold licenses for Jennings, Bob Dylan, the Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Townes Van Zandt, Nudie's Rodeo Tailors, John Wayne, the MC5, Roach Studios, Billy Joe Shaver, Janis Joplin, and Woodstock. I launched Midnight Rider in 2012 with Waylon Jennings as our first licensed artist, and have added about a dozen artists to the mix. I'm a huge collector of vintage t-shirts, specifically country music ones. I was finding that it was harder and harder to nab them after a while, so I decided to make my own."

As for future outlaw-inspired projects? Khayyam has her ideas. "I would love to do more collaborations going forward," she says. "We have nothing on the books right now, but I think home fragrance is high on my list. I mean, can you imagine a Waylon Jennings- or Billy Joe Shaver-scented candle?"

Buy your own Waylon x Stetson hat here. 

Photos courtesy of Mitra Khayyam and Stetson

Counsel of Elders: Billy Joe Shaver on Honoring the Song

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We’re starting a new column at the BGS called Counsel of Elders, wherein long-established artists pass their wisdom down to the upcoming generations.

Billy Joe Shaver is one of the most celebrated songwriters of the 20th Century. He is a songwriter’s songwriter whose music is honest and gritty … just like Shaver himself. He lives the music. As one of the main architects of the Outlaw Country movement, Shaver wrote nine of the 10 songs on Waylon Jennings' breakthrough album, Honky Tonk Heroes. Together, Shaver and Jennings broke away from the Nashville Sound and ushered in the harder, more traditional country music of the 1970s. Fellow Outlaw Kris Kristofferson was such a fan that he produced Shaver's debut album in 1973. You may not know the name Billy Joe Shaver, but we guarantee your favorite songwriter is a fan.

Is there something that you know now that you wish you'd known when you were starting out as a songwriter that would have saved you some grief?

Oh yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of things I wish I knew. I guess the main thing is that people are gonna steal from you. You know, songs are so precious and, if they steal them, it’s okay if they get it right. But most times, when they do, they get them … I hate to bring it up, but it’s the truth: If they take them from you, they don’t record them worth a darn because they’re in a big hurry. You know, a person runs faster with a stolen watermelon than one they bought.

I read that you had some publishing rights issues. Is that what you’re referring to?

Yeah, and actually some big songs went big that just broke my heart because I’d just come into town. People need to know that, when you write these things, they’re part of you. The thing is, they’re like real people. I don’t want to say you have to guard them, but you need to be careful with them and treat them good, like children really. When I find I write what I think is a good one, one that I really want to cherish, I spend a lot of time with it before I let anyone else hear it. I just keep going over and over it because it’s like a child and good. You want to spend some time with it. I know everybody says it, but it’s true.

That’s interesting because, in your songs, you feel so present in them. I don’t have kids, but I assume you see yourself in your songs much like you would in your children.

Yeah, that’s what I got. People need to get it in them that what they’re doing is really very, very important. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s not. It’s art. If you treat it like precious art, you’ll be better off. And the world, too, because you get it out the way you really wanted it. It don’t matter to me whose name is on it. If they get it right, it’s okay. As long as it’s out there right. It’s best to just watch it and be careful. It’s probably not what people want to hear, but it’s true.

It’s also what people need to hear. Was there anyone who helped you navigate the waters when you were starting out as a songwriter?

Not really, no. Nobody in my family played or did music. I was kind of older, anyway. I came into town and I knew … My English teacher way back when I was in the eighth grade told me how good I was and I took her word for it because she was real sharp. She was a 12th grade English teach we had in homeroom. The 8th graders were mixed with the 12th graders. She would come in for an hour and she would teach language … she was the one that always had you do something. She had us write poems. I wrote down one and she didn’t think I wrote it. I was one of those kids with the sleeves rolled up with cigarettes in it. So she didn’t believe I wrote it and she gave me an assignment about a very specific thing to write about and I did. It’s college-accepted poetry now. It was good.

When I quit school, she was upset with me for quitting school because I had a great talent, and I knew it. Which is why, when I cut my fingers off — when I was about 21, I had some fingers cut off at a sawmill — I shot a prayer up to God and said, “God, if you just get me through this one, I’ll go back to doing what I’m supposed to do.” And sure enough, I did. I went right back to practicing guitar. I’d been writing poetry that whole time anyway and I had these songs. I came to town and it happened very quick for me. Then again, I was older. I’d done a lot of living and been a lot of places. Everything I wrote about I did. Waylon Jennings did a whole album of my songs called Honky Tonk Heroes. It helped him as much as it did me, and that’s what I was figuring out … but I couldn’t sing as good as him. The songs are bigger than me, really. They’re huge and he banged them. He stuck his neck out and did that. That’s what got me on.

The main thing is just keep on trying. When you’re knocked down, don’t have a job, or not with a publishing company, if you’re a drunk even, or an addict, just keep on writing because as long as you’re writing and putting down words that you really like, that means you’re a success. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not because you’ll have the songs when your time comes. And it’ll come.

Photo credit: Jim McGuire