Editor’s note:

This series on Billy Ray Cyrus appeared several years ago in The Greenup Beacon. It was a work provided by Gregg Davidson a frequent contributor to the paper. This series has been revised with some new information ad restructuring by its author. The content presented is of his work and we have protected his poetic license. Any content or opinion in this series is his work and doesn’t express the paper’s stance or opinion.

 

As the 1980s drew to a close, Billy Ray Cyrus was poised for stardom. Although he and his band The Players were often still performing four or five nights a week at the Ragtime Lounge in Huntington, West Virginia, he had just signed an important personal management deal on July 24, 1989 with Nashville legend Jack McFadden, who along with music legend Del Reeves, was instrumental in helping the Flatwoods singer/songwriter to get into a studio for some quality demo recordings.

As 1990 dawned, Billy was making a nearly six hour drive to Nashville during the early part of the week to lay down tracks at the Allisongs recording studio, only to return to the Ragtime in time for another run of shows, or to hit the road as the warm-up act for more established artists.

In the meantime, McFadden was readying Billy Ray for more exposure by arranging professionally shot photo sessions, and priming him for press interviews and personal appearances by enrolling him in classes especially designed to groom individuals for interaction with media outlets, a program commonly referred to as “media school” or “celebrity school”, a customary step in the career of nearly all aspiring musicians and actors whose stars are on the rise.

There is little doubt that the rigors of such a busy schedule only added more strain to Billy’s already stressful life, and his concerns were cumbersome to say the least.

Professionally, he was struggling to stay true to who he was, while attempting to confirm his willingness to compromise in order to reach the next tier of success. It was a juggling act that had to be taxing, and he was certainly pushing himself in the process, but simultaneously growing impatient, perhaps wondering why the procedure was taking so long.

Privately, he was dealing with a shaky marriage, a strained relationship with his brother Kebo, and a band whose patience and stamina was being put to the test.

In May 1990, percussionist and long-time friend Steve French announced his decision to exit the group for personal reasons after his wife delivered a new baby, prompting Huntington-born drummer Greg Fletcher to join their ranks in June.

Despite the heaviness of his state of affairs, Billy Ray was managing to write and record songs at a frantic pace, desperate to find just the right selections to entice a major label to offer him a recording contract.

Harold Shedd, the head producer at Mercury/Polygram’s Nashville branch, had become aware of BRC due to the pleadings of McFadden, and dispatched partner Buddy Cannon to the Ragtime to eyewitness the band live.

Cannon’s report confirmed McFadden’s claims of mass hysteria that seemed to be conjured up anywhere Billy graced a stage, but Shedd and Cannon suspected that the singer’s hometown following might have clandestinely staged the whole frenzied encounter in order to get their golden boy a record deal. Shedd decided to accompany Cannon to see one of Billy’s shows, but wisely decided to do so unannounced without a single mention of their trip to anyone in fear of a repeated set up, choosing also to insure anonymity by traveling to an entirely different venue.

The resulting excursion proved to Shedd that the drawing power of Billy Ray Cyrus was indeed very real and exceptionally powerful, yet he remained uncertain whether such an unorthodox, genre-blurring performer could be accepted by both the Country Music community and the record-buying public as a true Country artist, so after a prolonged period of consideration, he finally phoned McFadden to report that he had decided to pass on the heartthrob.

Jack in turn called Billy Ray to relate the bad news, but confident about the marketability of one of his most heartfelt songs, Billy became convinced that a conference with Harold might sway his decision. He then took it upon himself to call the Mercury offices begging Shedd’s secretary to arrange a personal meeting between them.

Something about the despondency in his tone convinced her to comply, and Shedd agreed to give Billy only a five minute window of opportunity to speak his mind on the following Monday morning.

After another typically grueling week of shows in Huntington ended that Sunday night, Billy immediately left for Nashville with a copy of what he considered was his finest composition to date, a year-old song that was inspired after an emotionally moving encounter with a Vietnam veteran.

When Shedd heard “Some Gave All”, any doubts that he might have harbored concerning Billy’s songwriting abated, and in a surprising response he offered to “structure a little deal”. However jubilant Billy might have been, he suffered yet another unforeseen event later that year when Harold Cole, the bassist and founder of The Players, announced that he was leaving the group and taking the Players name with him.

In quick need of a bassist, they managed to enlist Corky Holbrook, who along with Billy’s former drummer Steve French, were the late Mike Murphy’s rhythm section in Zachariah for many years, a band beloved by thousands of tri-state residents. Corky (who’s also Murphy’s nephew) is a bright and natural talent with a great sense of humor, so he easily fit right in and effortlessly worked up the group’s material.

Once underway, recording sessions at Nashville’s Music Mill studios went pretty smoothly since Billy was already in possession of so much original material, but as it is practiced in Nashville, the insistence of considering tunes from industry songwriters persisted.

One solicited song was a tongue-in-cheek novelty ditty called “Don’t Tell My Heart” by writer/musician Don Von Tress. When Billy heard the demo, he says that he instantly felt like the song was tailor-made for him, feeling that its playful lyrics captured his own sometimes quirky sense of humor so often reflected in his own compositions.

In no way knowing that it was to change his life forever, the song was immediately added to the live set list and the band soon began to get heavy requests for it. Eventually, Billy and Sly Dog did record their own demo of the song, then reworked and re-titled as “Achy Breaky Heart”.

As the band continued to play the occasional road gig between sessions and beating in their time at the Ragtime, Billy remained in wait for the details of his label obligations and the official contractual document signing.

On January 3, 1991, Billy Ray, along with his business attorney and parents gathered at Ashland’s Paramount Arts Center beside Mercury associate Paul Lucks, Jack McFadden, and a congregation of local media representatives in what was billed as a press conference to witness Billy Ray officially seal the deal when he put his signature to a contract that called for eight albums (or five years) as recording artist and touring act. There was the ever-present bevy of beauties and a squad of exuberant cheerleaders in the assemblage of roughly 300 or more bristling BRC fans, many of whom were later in attendance at the Ragtime for that evening’s euphoric performance.

If Billy thought that his status was about to change overnight after his contract signing, he was in for a letdown as the weeks turned into months with no remarkable involvement from the label. At Mercury, part of what they considered problematic with marketing BRC was his unconformity to what was customarily considered Country.

Musical styles aside, Billy went against the grain of the Nashville image by rarely wearing cowboy hats or boots, and dismissing the typically fanciful embroidered button-down shirts, instead opting for simple printed t-shirts (often with an open button-down over it) and Reebok tennis shoes.

And then there was that matter of his hair. Although short hair was still the norm, longer hair was no longer taboo in Nashville after artists like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings had long ago pushed the envelope, but Billy’s hairstyle was somewhere in between, with its short top and long wavy locks in the back. Onstage, he usually appeared with it pulled back into a tight ponytail, only to work it free a few songs later amid screams of delight from adoring women.

There stood a strong chance that the label might try to reinvent Billy Ray, stalling his career until the right image was agreed upon, but luckily, but they finally allowed him to retain his own grooming style and fashion sense, a look that I feel helped to make him instantly identifiable. In a sense, his mullet helped him to become an icon of the industry at a time when it was mostly experiencing a return to traditional honky-tonk culture, fashion, and sounds. Should they risk failure by going against convention, or attempt to reinvent him into something more traditional before launching into any promotional campaigns?

For Billy, there were certainly other pressing concerns to consider at this point, one being what to now call the band. With Cole gone, they’d at first chosen to resurrect the old Billy Ray & The Breeze moniker, but upon suggestion by Fletcher, they dug back even deeper and resurrected the Sly Dog name in honor of Billy’s first group, a decision that sat well within the band, but the label insisted that Billy be billed and credited as a solo personality for any sanctioned releases.

The group’s members must have realized that it could even come to the point where they would have to address the possibility of losing their front-man to Nashville’s devices, or themselves become replaced. The city is notorious for its competitive, yet close-knit circle of power-brokers among its artists, publishers, and promoters, and they all look out for one another’s livelihood by discouraging newcomers.

When it comes to Nashville, you are either on the inside, or you are just another outsider until you prove yourself worthy of consideration. Even today it remains largely a self-serving industry with little flexibility towards the influx of fresh talent or their personal goals and need for self-expression.

Billy was obviously the one they wanted, and when it got down to the business of recording, the likely result would be an album utilizing industry session players, not some unknown bar band.

In theory, the best they might hope for was to gain a songwriting credit on an album, insuring some financial reward in the form of publishing royalties from unit sales, and at the very least, they might remain “hired guns”, working for a salary as a member of the touring group.

If the early events of that year were among the most exciting of Billy’s life, the rest of the year must have felt like one of the most frustrating due to the hurry-up-and-wait nature of the music business.

He was struggling to convince Joe Scaife and Jim Cotton, the sound producers at Music Mill studio, to use his backing band during recording sessions. To his credit, Billy pleaded to give them a listen, and perhaps in an effort to make him feel more comfortable, they eventually agreed to at least bring them in on a trial basis. Not surprisingly, since they were all well-seasoned players, the band firmly established their right to be included in the official sessions and quickly got right to work.

One day that year, while accompanied by my girlfriend Anne Christian (now my lovely wife), I made one of my ritualistic trips to the local Hill’s Department Store (now Hobby Lobby) in Russell in search of fresh music. Anne and I were checking out some new releases when Billy Ray walked into the music department all decked out in a strikingly colorful jacket and turned to say hello. Anne asked me if he wasn’t the guy that I had told her about from Flatwoods who had just landed a record deal, and I confirmed her assumption by congratulating Billy on his signing with Mercury and casually asked what he was doing in town.

We chatted for awhile as he related to me some details of the rather busy few weeks he’d recently been through, going on to inform me that he’d been in need of a little break.

He also explained that he had just brought home some unsolicited demos of his original songs from the studio to play for his mother Ruth Ann to hear, but realized that she didn’t own a working cassette player.

He turned to a shelf that held perhaps a dozen different models, and upon moving in closer for a better inspection of the products, furrowed his brow before asking me what I thought was the best deal for his money. As he began toying with some of the knobs and levers, I noticed that one unit on the top shelf was plugged in as a working display model, and was apparently the last one left of its kind.

I had a bit of insider knowledge since both my mother Pauline and my sister Rhonda were former Hill’s employees and suggested that he might ask for a discounted quote in purchasing it since that particular design was likely discontinued and all of the new compact disc players were gradually replacing them anyway. His eyes lit up at the proposal and we soon had the clerk running off in search of a manager who structured him another kind of little deal.

Knowing I’d long been involved in the local music scene, he asked me what people were saying about him and I told him in all honesty that everybody that I knew of were hoping that he was going to take the world by storm and we were counting on it. He stated that everyone was sure to like the music he was working on because he was putting more of himself into it than he ever had before, then switching gears he asked me if he should cut his ponytail off in a manner that suggested he’d been approached about it by someone at the label.

At this time, it was still several months before the video for “Achy Breaky Heart” would be filmed, so I’m sure that there remained a lot of speculation at the label concerning Billy’s image at the time. With my own hair dangling well below my shoulders, I curtly advised him to be remain true to himself and that he would be fine, adding that it was one of the things that would make him stand out in Nashville, then further reminded him of how we both knew that the ladies who preferred longer hair on their men were really passionate about it, adding that we wouldn’t want to let them down.

Glancing at Anne, he grinned and nodded in silent agreement before thanking me very politely for my help and my advice before we parted company with me wishing him success as he strolled away with his new purchase. Anne turned back to me and asked rather rhetorically, “He’s gonna be a big star isn’t he?” to which I simply and confidently replied, “Probably, yes.”