Country singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver acquitted in shooting outside Texas bar

Country singer Shaver acquitted in Texas shooting

WACO, Texas — Texas country singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver has been acquitted of aggravated assault in the 2007 shooting of a man in a bar parking lot.

Jurors took two hours Friday to decide. Shaver had testified that he acted in self-defense when he shot Billy Coker outside Waco on March 31, 2007. But prosecutors said no other witnesses had described Coker as “violent or mean.”

Shaver lives in Waco. He rose to country music stardom in the 1970s. Shaver recorded more than 20 albums and wrote “Georgia on a Fast Train” and “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be a Diamond Someday).”

He helped launch country’s outlaw movement, which defined the careers of singers Willie Nelson and the late Waylon Jennings.

Waco is about 100 miles south of Dallas.