EDITOR’S NOTE Cowboy Fever (and I ain’t talkin’ football)

A few years back, just before Christmas, my mother told me that the only gift she really wanted was an album by Billy Joe Shaver. Fine, I said: Who’s Billy Joe Shaver?

Some daughters, like Jerry Hall, are natural honky-tonk women. They probably wore boots while the rest of us were in booties, they recognize a Silver-Tangoed Devil for what he is and they know that Billy Joe Shaver wrote “Honky Tonk Heroes.”

That’s why Jerry is on this month’s cover; when D does honky-tonks and the people who partake of them, we want the real thing, not some imitation. And Jerry’s a hometown girl who has never given up her Texas roots.

Unless you’ve been living on longneeks for the past year, you’ve noticed that Country has become cliché. Fringe jumps off the pages of department store ads from Boston to Seattle. Most people wearing boots probably think Lucchese is an Italian designer. And some of the hottest C&W artists are too clean and pretty to remind us of Willie. Waylon and the boys.

It’s as if Texas has become generic. Almost. A few things just can’t be duplicated in Greenwich Village or on Melrose Avenue; Jerry Hall, for sure. And what about KPLX. Ranchman’s The Ponder Steak House, the Worthington bar?

Even though you don’t know him. the same goes for 21-year-old Shawn Henderson, a Dallas native who flunked out of the University of Texas (“I didn’t do well in any classes except English”) and whose mother was raised Baptist, “which precluded any dancing.”’ He thought he had hit “the end of the road” when he had to enroll in Brookhaven Community College, but Zack Miller’s creative writing class turned him around.

For the record Shawn is a purist: Line dancing makes him sick-“It’s not a real honky-tonk activity”-and he and his fiancé favor two-stepping at The Broken Spoke (see page 48). Bui he’s been in almost every Dallas honky-tonk (“I’ve been dancing since I was 15”), and those he didn’t know, we paid him to check out. In his clear, minimalist style, he delivers everything we need to know before we step into the night.

But that didn’t keep me from doing a sampling of my own one recent Saturday night. I began at Cowboys, one of Jerry Hall’s stomping grounds.

Jerry wasn’t there, but everyone else from Mesquite-and Dallas-who owns a pair of boots seemed to be drinkin’ or dancin’. Honky-tonk legend Gary Stewart was on stage, so you can’t do much better than that for a $5 cover charge and $2.75 beers. If only he had done “She’s Actin’ Single (and I’m Drinkin’ Doubles).”

Next stop, Borrowed Money. Shawn said it best, but I’ll give you another hint. Their dress code should ban full-length sarong skirts with black sandals. This is a honky-tonk, not a sorority house.

We ended the evening at the Top Rail-a Dallas legend after more than 50 years. As Bandera played and the wagon-wheel lights kept the room just dark enough, a woman with shot glasses strapped to her body sold her last drinks of the night. On the dance floor, lovers and line dancers kept moving.

My mother has never been in one of these places-she knows about Willie and Billy Joe because she loves great music- so next time she comes to Dallas, we’re going honky-tonkin’. In the meantime I’m sending her a copy of “You’re So Cold I’m Turnin’ Blue”-Martha Hume’s 1982 guide to the greatest in country music. Martha has lots of pictures of Billy Joe Shaver in the book, not to mention some very nice things to say about the guy.

And there’s this Billy Joe quote that seems appropriate for the times: “Just ’cause I wear a hat ain’t got a thing to do with where my head’s at.”