<P> Shaver took a job at a lumber mill to make ends meet . One day his right hand (his dominant hand) became caught in the machinery, and he lost the better part of two fingers and contracted a serious infection . He eventually recovered, and taught himself to play the guitar without those missing fingers . </P> <P> Shaver set out to hitchhike to Los Angeles, California . He could not get a ride west, and ended up accompanying a man who dropped him off just outside Memphis, Tennessee . The next ride brought him to Nashville, where he found a job as a songwriter for $50 per week . His work came to the attention of Waylon Jennings, who filled most of his album Honky Tonk Heroes with Shaver's songs . Other artists, including Elvis Presley and Kris Kristofferson, began to record Shaver's music . This led to his own record deal . </P> <P> The first few recording companies he signed with soon folded . He was never able to gain widespread recognition as a singer, although he never stopped recording his own music . On his records, he has been accompanied by other major rock and country music musicians like Willie Nelson, Nanci Griffith, Chuck Leavell and Dickey Betts (of the Allman Brothers), Charlie Daniels, Flaco Jiménez, and Al Kooper . </P> <P> After losing his wife, Brenda, and his mother to cancer in 1999, Shaver lost his son and longtime guitarist Eddy, who died at age 38 of a heroin overdose on December 31, 2000 . Shaver nearly died himself the following year when he had a heart attack on stage during an Independence Day show at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas . After successful heart surgery, Shaver came back to release Freedom's Child in 2002 . </P>

I going to georgia on a fast train