Hillbilly Heart

by Billy Ray Cyrus

  As he said all that, I was swept away into some new place I had never felt before, not even in church. This was a church like no other: a church of music. It was either as if a hundred hands were upon me or I was being cradled in one giant hand. I had goose bumps. And then instead of hearing Neil Diamond, I heard another familiar voice: “That’s it. That’s why you’re supposed to buy a guitar and start a band.”

  “But—”

  “You can do it. You’re going to do it. You’re going to be a positive influence in people’s lives. God is going to use you to share his light and love.”

  I wasn’t the first person in my family to hear a voice. My papaw Cyrus had been told to become a preacher, and he did. And while my dad, who was currently in the seventh of what would eventually be twenty-one years in the Kentucky House of Representatives, never heard a voice telling him to help other people, he clearly answered a calling when he ran for office. Something motivated him.

  Now the same was true of me. I drove home from that concert in a trance. Back at my mom’s—where I was living at the ripe old age of twenty-one—I pulled my Chevy into the driveway, turned off the ignition, and sat there, trying to make sense of what was happening in my life.

  Confused and a little scared, I looked up at the sky, a canvas of black, dotted with stars that seemed to stretch to infinity. Its vastness would have made me feel like an insignificant speck if not for what happened next. I pounded on the steering wheel and yelled, “I don’t play guitar!”

  “Buy a left-handed guitar.” The voice was calm and direct.

  I was left-handed, except for when I played baseball or threw a football. My dad’s guitar, and every other one I’d ever tried to play, had been right-handed. Could it be that simple?

  It was not so simple to find a left-handed guitar. Even in a big city, music stores don’t keep them in stock. Finally, after numerous calls, I found a store in Portsmouth, Ohio, with a left-handed Fender F-3.

  “Really?” I said to the guy on the phone.

  “I just told you, man. We got one.”

  I said, “I’m coming to get it. My name is Cyrus…”

  CHAPTER 9

  Sly Dog

  ALL THE WAY TO the music store, I kept telling myself that this was really happening to me. I was excited. I was barreling down the highway, literally and figuratively, which, I guess, is the very definition of faith. For the first time, I knew I was heading in the right direction.

  The Fender F-3 cost me $225. I sped back home, sat down in the living room, took the guitar out of its case, and began to play. No, I didn’t suddenly play like Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan, but damn if holding that thing didn’t just feel right. I had spent years mangling the songs in my dad’s Glen Campbell songbook. Yet now I was making something that actually sounded like music.

  I had never been able to play like this before but I didn’t question it, either. It was clear my brain was just wired that way. The music all made sense, from my head to my heart to my fingers to my soul. It felt good and right, and I just went with it. I was going to start this band, right then and there, that night.

  My brother Kebo had been laid off from the C&O Railroad and needed something to do, so he was thrilled when I called that night and invited him to join a band—my band. I also rounded up two guys from the warehouse—bass player Paul Rice and drummer Bob “Bubba” Wileman—and a guy named Pat Williams who played guitar. We met that night at 2317 Long Street, in our old converted carport.

  I plugged into my dad’s old PA from his gospel quartet days and taped one of his Elvis-era microphones to an old broom handle. For some reason, everyone just assumed I would be the lead singer. We jammed on Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”; Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” and “Call Me the Breeze”; Hank Williams’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”; George Jones’s “He Stopped Loving Her Today”; and Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night.”

  All of a sudden, using my left hand—the same one I use to brush my teeth—the guitar made sense in a way it never had before. I watched my brother, copied the basic chords, and let the music I felt inside me come out. I credit Dr. Bailey and his book. Thanks to the powerful lessons of positive thinking, I put up no resistance to what I was trying to do. I pictured myself playing music, and I did.

  The rest is history… only it took another decade to get there.

  “Man, we’re playing!” Bubba chortled after a Skynyrd song. “We’ve got a band. All we need is a name.”

  “Yeah, so what are we going to call ourselves?” someone else said. Good question. As we cooled off with some beers, Bubba knelt down and scratched Spike on his stomach. Spike was equal parts bulldog and scrappy mutt. He’d gotten in a scrape with another dog the previous Christmas and lost an eye, which the vet had sewed shut, giving him the look of an old pirate. I thought Bubba was brave to pet him on account of how ugly and unsavory he was, but my pal was amused by the way Spike immediately rolled over and opened himself up to the attention.

  “Look at this guy,” he said, laughing. “Yeah, you ol’ sly dog.”

  “That’s it,” I said.

  “What?” my brother asked.

  “Our name. We’ll call ourselves Sly Dog.”

  Having music back in my life was a blessing. My dad was nothing but supportive. “If this is what you’ve decided to do, put your whole self into it,” he said. My mom occasionally joined us during rehearsals in the converted carport, sitting at the piano in there and jamming on Bruce Springsteen’s “Open All Night” and Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page.” If nothing else happened with my music other than seeing my mom going at the keys with a huge smile on her face, I would’ve thought the whole thing was worthwhile.

  Playing brought out a feeling in me that had been locked away since I was a little kid. It released the joy I remembered as a five-year-old when the whole family made music together. I’d stashed that part of me in some distant corner for most of my growing up.

  By day, I was a laid-back, introverted Kentucky boy (except when provoked), but once I picked up a guitar and stepped in front of a microphone, I turned into an uninhibited, balls-out rocker who couldn’t wait to get onstage in front of people and share the good times.

  We rehearsed as time permitted through the holidays and into the early part of 1983. I quit my job at the cigarette warehouse and prepared for stardom by investing twenty dollars in business cards featuring the band’s name and a derby-wearing dog with long ears and a knowing grin.

  BILLY RAY CYRUS

  GUITAR-VOCALS

  I loved whipping out that card. “Hi, I’m Billy Ray Cyrus of Sly Dog.” Bam! The card didn’t list a phone number, which defeated the whole purpose. But my ambition more than made up for my lack of polish (and common sense). I believed in aiming for the top, so one night I wrote down a bunch of goals, including one that set the bar really high: “Sly Dog will begin infiltrating the local tristate music scene and play at several venues whenever possible. In ten months, the band will land a house gig and begin building a local following.”

  I wrote a very personal goal, too.

  “I will become a successful singer, songwriter, and entertainer. I will entertain around the world. God will use my music to touch people’s lives and represent his light and love.” And then, because everything I had ever read about setting a goal said to be specific, really specific, I added, “I will be known as the next Elvis Presley.”

  At the start of Sly Dog, I made a crucial decision about our music. We were only going to play cover songs until we had enough of our own original tunes. Every great band and artist played original material. That was the only way to go.

  Had I ever written a song before? No. Was that a problem? Not for me. My first original tune was a country ballad about Robbie Tooley called “Suddenly,” and the second was a barn burner called “What the Hell Is Goin’ On.” Both came quickly, as if they were hanging on an invisible clothesline
, waiting for me to take them down. The third song also came easily, and made me certain I had chosen the right path.

  Let me explain. In January 1983, I ran through the last of my savings and found a new job with Cravens Construction Company. I had met the owner, Ken Cravens, a year or two earlier in the weight room at the YMCA. We’d hit it off, and he remembered me when I knocked on his door looking for a job. He hired me to work on his construction crew even though I didn’t have any experience and couldn’t hammer a nail into a board if you held it for me.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’ve got good energy. You’re fun to have around.”

  One of my jobs was to represent the company in court when they had problems with renters. They just needed a body from the company present; the lawyer handled everything else. One day I was there for a case against a renter who’d trashed his place, and during lunch I walked across the street to a restaurant. On the way, I passed the Greenup County Library, where I noticed the front page of an old newspaper displayed in the window. I don’t know why I stopped to read it, but I did. The lead story described the death of a eight-year-old girl named Mary Magdalene Pitts. She’d been horribly abused—burned with a poker and mutilated—and then killed by her own father, Robert Pitts, and the woman he’d hired to watch his children. Her name was Marie Frazier. They had been on trial in the courthouse where I had just been a few minutes earlier. According to the story, Mary’s little body had been placed in a glass coffin and displayed in front of the library where I now stood.

  But weirdest of all was the description of the house where Mary had died. I realized it was the little shack beyond my dad’s house in Argillite—the one where my friends Calvin and Jimmy had lived until it burned down.

  I hadn’t thought of that place in a long time. Suddenly, the tragic night came back to me: the commotion, the fear in Clyde’s and Jimmy’s eyes, the firemen unable to reach the house as it burned to the ground, and the sound I’d heard, a little girl’s voice saying, “Help me. Help me, Mommy.”

  I knew what I had to do. After court wrapped that afternoon, I got in my truck and drove to the cemetery where Mary had been buried. I wanted to see her headstone. It was as if a force greater than me had propelled me there.

  The place dated back to the 1700s and looked it. The grounds were unkempt and overgrown. I climbed up the side of a large hill, following the description of Mary’s grave location in the old newspaper. I hiked through bushes and briars, my face and arms getting scratched. I stopped to pick some wild daisies, which I planned to put on Mary’s grave.

  I kept climbing and looking around, unsure of what exactly was driving this impassioned mission. Finally, I spotted Mary’s tombstone, an angel with a broken wing. Sweating and bleeding, I scrambled over, knelt down, placed the flowers on her grave, and asked, “Why me? Why me?”

  Honestly, I didn’t expect an answer. But I heard a voice, that same voice I’d heard before.

  “Someday you’ll be able to tell my story.” That’s what I heard. Who or what or where that voice came from—your guess is as good as mine.

  About ten years later, I wrote “Enough Is Enough,” a song about child abuse that was meant to tell Mary’s story, as well as put Mary’s long-suffering soul to rest. But more immediately, I went home that very night and wrote a song called “Sunshine Girl.” It was the third song I ever wrote, though I’m reluctant to claim credit since the words flowed right through me and out of my hand.

  Summer comes, summer goes

  Leaves will fall and the north wind blows

  But your love makes the sun shine every day

  Tears for you cloud my mind

  Take my hand if you’d be so kind

  Show me… that the sun shines anyway…

  Sunshine Girl, keep me from cryin’

  Sunshine Girl, teach me to smile

  Sunshine Girl, when the rain has fallen

  Open up your heart and let your sun shine down on me

  Life’s a game, I’ve been told

  It’s not fair, it can be so cold

  But you always… find a way to…

  Make me warm…

  If everyone could be like you

  Soft and gentle… yet so strong, too

  Your sunshine, could be the lighthouse… through the storm

  In February, Ken Cravens heard about my band and suggested we move our equipment into his spacious Bellefonte home and use it for rehearsals. He was a successful middle-aged man who had gone through a divorce and remarried a younger gal. Ken liked having us around to fire up the joint with some loud music. As for us, it was a sweet setup that beat the hell out of the measly carport at my mom’s house. We jokingly referred to it as Sly Dog Lodge.

  Beyond offering a place to rehearse, Ken became our manager. In April, he threw a birthday party for his wife and we provided the music. A month later, he arranged for us to play an assembly at Summit Elementary School in Ashland and then for one thousand inmates at the nearby federal correctional institution. Both gigs were unpaid and arranged at the last minute, but I was desperate to play in front of people.

  However, the day after we played the elementary school, I told Ken no more free gigs. I told him my goals. I wanted Sly Dog to become the house band at one of the local bars or clubs by my twenty-second birthday on August 25. I wanted to be signed to a major record label by my twenty-third birthday. I wanted my music to be heard around the world. And I wanted my music to share God’s light and love.

  Our first paying job was in the restaurant at the Jesse Stuart Lodge at Greenbo Lake State Park, the same place I’d worked a few years earlier. The lodge’s clientele, mostly middle-aged folks looking for quiet in the woods and gentle country tunes at dinner, got a surprise when we served up a set peppered with the Allman Brothers Band and ZZ Top. No one complained, though, and Ken divided the night’s pay: $150. Thrilled, we split it five ways, gave Ken a five-dollar commission, and spent the rest of the night celebrating.

  “Thirty bucks apiece,” I said, toasting the band. “We ain’t rich. But we’re on our way.”

  A week of playing in front of an audience taught us more than a month of rehearsals. We screwed around less and made fewer mistakes. We all played with more intensity and focus and we paid more attention to the way we blended with one another. When we were in front of people, there was no middle ground. It was all or nothing.

  After the first few gigs, guitarist Pat Williams dropped out of the band, wanting a more stable life. I recruited my high school buddy and former baseball and football teammate J.R. Gullett as his replacement. J.R. was a genuine musician and country music authority who lent authenticity to our southern rock sound. Plus, he sounded great on those harmonies. Our voices blended really well together.

  We played the lodge a few more times and also at several other similar venues, but each gig only made me hungrier to play more frequently. I was doing all I could do to get us booked in one of the numerous clubs in the area. I didn’t care if it was the Catlettsburg Boat Club, the Auger Inn, the Red Fox Lounge, or one of the other rough-and-tumble watering holes where folks unwound after work. I wanted to take that next step, and the next one.

  “Be patient,” Ken advised.

  “But my birthday’s around the corner,” I said. “Remember my goal is to be playing one of those places before August twenty-fifth.”

  “I know,” he said. “You’ve told me. But as you can imagine, these people haven’t even heard of you yet.”

  “They will,” I said. “I believe if you build a place high enough on the mountain, then surround it with enough lights, and play really loud, I mean really loud, the world has to take notice.” I smiled. “Either that, or they’ll tell you to turn that shit down.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Tarot Cards

  EIGHT DAYS BEFORE MY birthday deadline, there was good news: Sly Dog had its first headlining gig at the Sand Bar, a popular club in Ironton, Ohio. The Sand Bar was located inside the Marti
ng House Hotel, a place that dated back to the 1800s and was full of charm, if old and dilapidated was your style. J.R. described it as “clean but rough.”

  The place had been under water for a few days during the great flood of 1937, and on certain nights when the humidity was high, it felt like it had never thoroughly dried. As for rough, well, we could count on at least one fight breaking out before the night ended. Liquor, rock and roll, good-looking women… and somebody always had a knife or a gun… it was a recipe for trouble.

  As such, I was uncharacteristically nervous before our first set. I placed a lot more significance on the show than anyone else. Once we began to play, though, those jitters disappeared and I turned into a party animal, easily winning over that night’s crowd. As word spread, we drew bigger crowds on subsequent nights.

  We played at the Sand Bar for the next seven weeks straight. Our sets included covers of songs by Billy Idol, George Jones, Lacy J. Dalton, Bruce Springsteen, Merle Haggard, Loverboy, the Eagles, Kenny Rogers, Bob Seger, ZZ Top, and Johnny Cash. We also pulled from my ever-expanding list of originals, including “Suddenly” and “What the Hell Is Goin’ On,” plus the fun honky-tonk rave-up “Mom Called Dad a Mother,” “Take a Ride,” “This Beer’s for You,” and “Babysitter.”

  My basic rule was if I liked it, I played it—and I played it loud. I took requests. If we didn’t know the song, we learned it and played it another night. We never had a set list; I just tried to key in on the crowd’s vibe. As a result, no night was the same other than the fact that we made a lot of new friends, including plenty of good-looking women.

  One night in late September or early October, I was hanging out after the last set. We had played a packed house. In fact, we became so popular, the club was preparing to move us from the nightclub into the hotel’s upstairs ballroom, a much larger room that must have been a jewel for the area’s upper crust back in the 1930s. Now it needed refurbishing, and they were taking care of that before we plugged in. At any rate, it was closing in on 2 a.m., and I was cooling down from the night. The bartender and one of the waitresses were cleaning up, and I was staring off into space when a woman in her mid-fifties tapped me on the shoulder.