Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 4, 1990                   TAG: 9003013856
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOE EDWARDS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, TENN.                                 LENGTH: Medium

HIS MARRIAGES FAILED, BUT HIS SONG IS A SUCCESS

In fact, he wrote the amusing ditty - recorded by George Strait - with his fourth wife's assistance. The 1987 song is probably Shafer's best known work in a 25-year composing career that's yielded 200 recorded tunes.

"I think I've written something about everything that's ever been written about," the 55-year-old Shafer said recently.

His wry look at former spouses, embellished by the catchy title, became one of the most popular country songs of the past decade. Local country music bands everywhere have the song in their repertoire.

The tune also helped Strait win the prestigious "Entertainer of the Year" award from the Country Music Association last year.

And attention all those ex's: The royalties helped Shafer, too.

He and current wife, Lyndia, who have been married eight years, wrote the song about his three ex-wives. It's not malicious, and listeners tend to feel sorry for the fellow in the song who can't even return to the river where he learned how to swim.

"That's why I hang my hat in Tennessee," the song says.

He'd like to go to Texas, but things "are kinda hot down there," explained Shafer, born and raised in the Waco, Texas, area. "It was a fun song to write. I did change the names to protect the guilty."

The rhyming title, which has become one of the most famous in country music, is a follow-up to a punchy line he wrote in the 1970s for another song: "I was following the rodeos in Texas and being chased by the fathers of my ex's."

"Some titles don't tell the whole story, but this one did," said Shafer, who got the nickname "Whitey" in high school because of his light-colored hair.

He gives Strait, a fellow Texan, credit for taking a chance on the song others considered inappropriate.

"I think if he hadn't cut that, it would never have been recorded," Shafer said. "People are funny about cutting cute songs, but that one just had something about it. It was too cute to pass up.

"I wish I had a bushel basket full like that one."

The inevitable question is whether his three ex-wives really do live in Texas and how they reacted to the song. "They do live there, but one sort of drifts back and forth between California and Texas," Shafer said.

He's not sure how two of them feel, but ex-wife Darlene took it fine.

"We're still friends," he said.

Last year, Shafer wrote the hit song "I Wonder Do You Think of Me," which was the first tune released by country singer Keith Whitley after Whitley died in May of an accidental overdose of alcohol. It was a No. 1 record.

"I liked him a whole lot and he'd been to my house a lot when he first came to town," Shafer said. "He was a heck of a talent, a great singer and was only getting better as he went on. He also had a great personality."

Some of Shafer's other top songs include "Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your Mind," recorded by Strait; "That's the Way Love Goes," a No. 1 country music record by both Merle Haggard and Johnny Rodriguez; and "I Never Go Around Mirrors," also recorded by Whitley.

Shafer moved to Nashville from Texas in the mid-1960s with the idea of becoming a singer. He did some performing, but found the competition stiff.

"There were too many singers," he recalled. So he turned to songwriting.

"For some reason, I've always been able to retain a string of notes I've heard," he said. "It just seems like I know what kind of idea will go with a certain melody."

Shafer, who recently was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, describes himself as a writer of traditional country music with little interest in pop oriented styles. Give him a few beers and his favorite instrument and he'll come up with a country song.

"It just seemed like a guitar and six pack went together," he said.

"Right now I like to write love songs because I'm in love. When I was rough and rowdy, I wrote rough and rowdy songs."

But he says country music's honky-tonk songs glorifying alcohol, such as Hank Williams' "There's a Tear in My Beer," aren't as popular as they used to be.

"Drinking and getting drunk is not hip any more. People don't like to see it. It's almost indignant to be tipsy. People just don't want to mess with people who can't control their lives."