Country singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver pleads no contest to gun charge from Texas shooting

Country singer Shaver doesn’t contest gun charge

WACO, Texas — Texas country singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver has been fined $1,000 after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor gun charge.

The charge arose from a 2007 shooting outside a Waco-area saloon. In April, a jury acquitted the 70-year-old Shaver of aggravated assault in the wounding of Billy Coker outside the saloon near Lorena. Shaver contended he shot Coker in self-defense.

He pleaded no contest to the gun charge for allegedly having a .22-caliber pistol in the bar, which is illegal. He agreed to forfeit of the gun.

Shaver rose to country music stardom in the 1970s. The self-styled “Honky Tonk Hero” 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).”