Singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, one of the great voices of outlaw country and a massive influence on the genre as a whole, died on 10/28 in Waco, Texas, reportedly of a stroke. He was 81.

Our dear friend Holly Gleason has written a heartfelt remembrance of the man and his work. "An almost primitive writer, capable of great poetry and earth-cracking truths, Shaver’s gift was an odd gentleness, a vulnerability that recognized the failings of our mortal coil matched with a hell-raising, take-no-shit kind of reckless good-timing," she writes. You can read Holly's soulful essay, "I'm Gonna Catch Tomorrow Now: Billy Joe Shaver's Rowdy Tonk for Believers," in its entirety here.