Jun 12
Whitey Shafer Next Poet & Prohpet at Country Music Hall of Fame June 21
Nashville, Tenn. — Legendary songwriter Whitey Shafer will make a rare public appearance at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum on Saturday, June 21, as the latest subject of the quarterly programming series Poets and Prophets: Legendary Country Songwriters. The 2:00 p.m. program, which will be held in the Museum’s Ford Theater, is included with Museum admission and free to Museum members.
Museum Editor Michael Gray will conduct an in-depth, one-on-one interview with Shafer, illustrated with audiovisual elements from the Museum’s collection, including recordings, photos and film clips. Shafer will perform several original songs during the program, and immediately following he will sign autographs in the Museum Store.
Whitey Shafer has written or co-written some of the most significant country songs of the last forty years. His rich, ambling compositions are often situational and soulful, exploring life, love and honky-tonk heartache. Shafer’s hits include “That’s the Way Love Goes (Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Rodriguez, Merle Haggard), “I Never Go Around Mirrors” (Lefty Frizzell), “I Just Started Hatin’ Cheatin’ Songs Today” (Moe Bandy), “Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind” (George Strait), “All My Ex’s Live in Texas” (George Strait) and “I Wonder Do You Think of Me” (Keith Whitley), among many others.
Sanger D. Shafer was born into a musical family on October 24, 1934, in Whitney, Texas. His mother taught him to play piano and, by age 12, he had acquired his first guitar from an uncle, a gift that Shafer claims “had more than one hole in it.” Although his parents were both gospel singers, the music of Texas dance-halls was still allowed to drift through the Shafer household. He grew up listening to Texas mainstays Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb on the radio. It wasn’t until 1950, when he heard Lefty Frizzell’s “If You’ve Got the Money I’ve Got the Time” on a café jukebox, that Shafer decided he’d found a “hero.”
After completing high school, Shafer began singing and playing piano in local honky-tonks, occasionally sharing the stage with a teenaged Willie Nelson. After completing three years of Army service in California, Shafer returned to Texas in the early 1960s and supplemented a weekly roadhouse gig in Waco with a variety of odd jobs that ranged from digging ditches to raising turkeys. Primarily a performer, Shafer didn’t write his first song until he was 30 years old.
Shafer moved in 1967 to Nashville where he began writing at night with songwriters A.L. “Doodle” Owens and Dallas Frazier, and working as a carpenter during the day. Within a year, Shafer signed an artist deal with RCA and a publishing deal with Ray Baker’s Blue Crest Music. He released a handful of honky-tonk 45s under his own name, and George Jones cut two of his songs, “Between My House and Town” and “I’m a New Man in Town.” By the early 1970s, Shafer had signed an exclusive contract with Acuff-Rose Music.
In 1972, Shafer managed to strike up a friendship with his boyhood idol Lefty Frizzell. Hoping to play the country legend a demo he’d recorded, Shafer nervously knocked on Frizzell’s door. Frizzell not only invited him in and listened to his entire demo tape, but he recorded Shafer’s “You, Babe” the very next day. The two became close friends and songwriting partners until Frizzell’s death three years later, penning the classics “That’s the Way Love Goes” and “I Never Go Around Mirrors,” among others.
Other enduring songs written by Shafer include “The Baptism of Jesse Taylor” (Johnny Russell), “Bandy the Rodeo Clown” (Moe Bandy), “Honky Tonk Amnesia” (Moe Bandy), “Soft Lights and Hard Country Music” (Moe Bandy) and “Overnight Success” (George Strait). From the 1970s to present, Shafer’s songs have also been recorded by artists including Kenny Chesney, Don Everly, John Michael Montgomery, Connie Smith, Rhonda Vincent, Lee Ann Womack and others.
In 1987, Shafer was nominated for both a Grammy award and a CMA Song of the Year Award for George Strait’s hit “All My Ex’s Live in Texas.” He was elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989.
Visitors are encouraged to ask questions at the interactive Poets and Prophets programs, which are dedicated to songwriters who have made significant contributions to country music history. Previous Poets and Prophets honorees include Bobby Braddock, Hank Cochran, John D. Loudermilk, Bob McDill and Craig Wiseman.
With the purchase of a Museum membership ($25/adults and $10/youth), visitors can attend most public programs free of charge for one year, including the Poets and Prophets series, Nashville Cats series, and all programming related to the current exhibit Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy, Co-Presented by SunTrust and Ford Motor Company. Museum memberships also include one year of unlimited admission to the Museum, discounts in the Museum Store, SoBro Grill and Hatch Show Print, and more. Membership support helps fund research, education and public programs that make country music history available to a worldwide audience.
Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964. The Museum’s mission is the preservation of the history of country and related vernacular music rooted in southern culture. With the same educational mission, the Foundation also operates CMF Records, the Museum’s Frist Library and Archive, CMF Press, Historic RCA Studio B, and Hatch Show Print.
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