In the backstage area at the festival, I met Charlie’s longtime keyboard player, Taz DiGregorio. Taz had cowritten Charlie’s massive 1979 hit “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” I showed him my tape and asked if there was any way to get it to Charlie. He pointed out the window to their tour manager and nodded.
“Let’s go,” he said.
I held my cassette but let Taz talk to the tour manager.
“Mr. Daniels is in a meeting,” he said.
“No, man, you don’t have to be like that,” Taz said, clearly knowing better. “This is my friend.”
I ended up handing the cassette to the tour manager, hoping he would follow through and get it to Charlie. Years later, after the song and the album carrying the same title had been out for a while, I met up with Charlie, who told me “Some Gave All” was one of his favorite songs of mine. He swore he’d never heard it back in the day.
“Well, I gave it to you first,” I said. “That’s the truth.”
“I didn’t hear it or else I would’ve cut it,” he said. “Fate must’ve been on your side.”
And he was right.
CHAPTER 17
A Big “Little Deal”
NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, WHEN I went home from the Ragtime, I watched CNN and recorded the bleakest stories on my VCR as if I was documenting the end of the world. I taped ’em all: wars, earthquakes, the depletion of the ozone layer, the slaughter of wild animals, world hunger. If there was a catastrophe someplace, anyplace, I found a way to relate to it.
Sometimes Cindy woke up, came downstairs, and got mad at me. She thought I might be losing my mind and perhaps she was right. But I felt like I needed to feel. For some reason, there was an awakening inside me. The world was spinning fast and I was running out of time.
In July of the previous year, 1989, I’d finally signed a management contract with Jack McFadden, who seemed ready to get back to work after losing Keith Whitley. But nothing happened.
Though I was becoming impatient, I had to think back to earlier years when I was frustrated and anxious to get something going. I almost made a big mistake. I nearly signed with Bernie Faulkner, an independent songwriter and producer out of Hazard, Kentucky. His label was called BFI Records. He’d seen me play at a talent contest sponsored by Wrangler jeans. But I didn’t want to sign just because I was desperate. I spoke with my dad, who advised me to do what felt right and not to settle just because I was in a hurry. I did have other options. In fact, I was leaving a meeting on Music Row, between 16th and 17th Avenues, when I walked out a back door and into an alley, where I said, “God, tell me what to do. Should I sign with BFI Records, Lord? Show me a sign. Amen.” When I opened my eyes, I noticed a blue dumpster in front of me, and stenciled on the side in big white letters it read, BFI.”
“Wait a minute,” I said out loud. “Wait a minute! I’ve come too far and put too much into this to sign with the garbage man.”
In January 1990, Jack convinced Buddy Cannon, a talent executive with Mercury Records, to see us play at the Ragtime. The audience response that night was so overwhelming that Cannon told his boss at Mercury, Harold Shedd, that it must’ve been cooked up to impress him. A nobody couldn’t be that popular. They concocted a scheme to sneak into a gig I had in Huntington, and they saw me again in May when I opened for Reba McEntire at Louisville’s Freedom Hall, where fifteen thousand fans whooped and hollered like crazy for me to continue my short set. Some of them actually followed me back to the Ragtime, where I played three sets that same night.
For the next two months I waited for a phone call that didn’t come, for reasons I didn’t understand. I had a big fan base, a great band, songs that were on local radio, a powerful manager, and I was writing some of the best songs of my career. What was it going to take for something to happen? Jack took my demos to numerous labels, and all of them turned me down, including Mercury.
I was frustrated, depressed, and desperate. My marriage—what was left of it—skidded to a halt.
“Billy, you might never make it, and I can’t keep going through this,” Cindy said.
I needed help or guidance, and one day my inner voice told me to go back to Flatwoods, back to the church where Papaw Cyrus had preached. Although I hadn’t been there for years, I figured it couldn’t hurt. So the next Sunday I showed up and took a seat in the back row. Some folks recognized me as the honky-tonk singer, and others knew that the church had once been my papaw’s. As the preacher began his sermon, I flashed back to the way my brother and I used to kneel at the altar and say the Lord’s Prayer.
Minutes later, I snapped to attention when the preacher, his voice rising with the sharpness of a pushpin, said, “God loves a desperate man! God loves a desperate man! When you are desperate, you don’t get down on your knees and say, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.’ No, you get down on your knees and you pray, ‘God, I’m desperate!’”
I stood up, walked to the front, and dropped to my knees. A few others joined me. I bowed my head and prayed, “God, I’m as desperate as they come. If you’re ever going to help, please help me now.”
That night, I drove to the Ragtime and did my sets. The Devil threw everything he had at me, too. But I went home after that fourth set. On the way home, I spoke into my recorder. “I will call Harold Shedd at Mercury Records first thing in the morning. I will tell him that I need to see him for five minutes and play him my best. If it ain’t good enough, then I should probably do something else.”
The next morning I woke up early, dialed Mercury Records, and asked for Harold Shedd. Harold’s secretary, Joyce, answered the phone. I’d met her several times. She wouldn’t put Harold on the line, but she did listen to me say that I was coming to Nashville the next day and wanted five minutes of his time.
“Just five minutes,” I said. “Then I’ll leave and never bother either of you again.”
The line went quiet. I thought I heard the ruffling of paper. Maybe she was checking Harold’s appointment book. She came back to the phone.
“Five minutes is all you’re going to get, Billy,” she said.
“That’s all I’ll need,” I said.
I drove down that night, and early the next morning I walked into Harold Shedd’s office. I had five minutes for the biggest audition of my life. I sat on a chair in front of Harold’s desk. There was no time to waste. I pulled out my guitar and said, “Mr. Shedd, this is the best thing I got. If it ain’t good enough, I won’t bother you anymore.” I began to play “Some Gave All.” After the last note, I looked at Harold expectantly, eager for a reaction. He’d sat with a poker face through the whole song, and his expression didn’t change when I finished.
Finally, he nodded and said, “I’m going to structure you a little deal.” Then he got up and walked out of the room. I sat there and thought, what did he mean by that? What’s he going to do, have me cut the grass here at the record company?
When he returned, a small man in a suit was with him. His name was Paul Lucks. He was the president of the label. He shook my hand and said, “Mr. Cyrus, welcome to Mercury Records. I’ll get hold of your manager, Jack McFadden.”
I put up my guitar and got out of there as quick as I could, before anyone could change their mind.
After leaving Harold’s office, my first stop was Jack’s. I couldn’t wait to tell him the good news and burst through the big hickory door that had once been closed to me. When I did, he looked up from behind his desk, startled.
“Jack, I did it!” I said, pumping my first into the air. “I got a deal with Mercury Records.”
He lifted his head and stared at me. Just then, his secretary came on his speaker and said, “Jack, line one. It’s Paul Lucks.” He continued to stare at me while I heard him say, “Yep… yep. OK, Paul…” By that point, his dark eyes looked like Daffy Duck’s when he lands in the pot of gold. He said, “Congratulations, my boy. You did it.”
On January 3, 1991, I officially signed my contract with Mercury
Records. Jack arranged a press event at Ashland’s Paramount Arts Center, in the same theater where I’d watched Disney movies as a kid. My parents, Mercury executive Paul Lucks, a handful of reporters, and about three hundred fans applauded as I put my signature at the bottom of the contract. Jack boldly predicted I was “Nashville’s next big superstar.”
Less than two weeks later, I recorded “Some Gave All,” the song most people, including me, expected to be my first single. That day was special for a number of reasons. It was January 16, the first day of Operation Desert Storm, and when I laid down the vocals I wasn’t singing just for Sandy Kane and other Vietnam vets. I was also singing for all the US soldiers in the Gulf, providing a sendoff and a foreshadowing of what some of them would face later. It was very emotional.
The session was held in Nashville’s Music Mill, the legendary log structure where I wasn’t exactly welcomed when I first showed up in town to peddle my songs. Now I was in the ten-thousand-square-foot state-of-the-art recording studio. It felt right, like I belonged.
We recorded, mixed, and put the final tweaks on “Some Gave All” in one marathon session. Late that night something weird happened. The Mill’s lobby had high-vaulted ceilings and walls decorated with dozens of photos and gold records showcasing the stars and legends who’d walked through the doors and made music that changed their lives. At the top of one wall was a large, framed picture of Keith Whitley’s album with two platinum records inside. During a break, Jack and I walked into the lobby and suddenly the large framed plaque basically sprang from the wall and crashed to the ground right in front of Jack’s feet. Glass shattered. I saw the color drain from Jack’s face.
“Cyrus, I have to go home now,” he said, choking up.
“No problem,” I said. “I got this.”
Mercury had assigned veteran producers Joe Scaife and Jim Cotton to my album. They were forthright in telling me the label wanted to see if what I did onstage translated to a record. I asked to use my band, Sly Dog, instead of studio musicians. We’d gone through more personnel changes after Harold Cole departed at the end of 1990, but I believed Terry Shelton (guitar), Greg Fletcher (drums), Barton Stevens (keyboard), and Corky Holbrook (bass) were as tight as any guys they could assemble—plus, we’d added Keith Hinton on guitar—and they were my guys.
“I’m not going after the Nashville sound,” I said. “I want my sound. That’s what got me here.”
I wouldn’t have felt like a real artist if I’d gotten to that point and then surrendered. I wanted to make my record the way Bruce Springsteen made his: work up the songs with my band and then go cut the tracks.
Explaining that every new artist made the same request, Jim, Joe, and Harold Shedd said they’d give the band one trial, and only one. Nearly twenty-four hours later, when we listened to the final version of “Some Gave All,” everyone knew… they passed the test.
“You can use your band on the album,” Harold said.
It was a special moment, at a special time, in a special place, with a special song… where music changed everything.
CHAPTER 18
“Don’t Tell My Heart”
FOR THE NEXT SIX MONTHS, I tried to survive while the label’s brain trust ostensibly decided on the songs for my debut album. In reality, I don’t think they knew exactly what I was or how to package me, so even though I was on their official roster of artists, they kept me on the sidelines.
I thought they were missing a huge opportunity. The United States was fully engaged in the Gulf War, and CNN was broadcasting the play-by-play live on television. I thought they should release “Some Gave All” right then. People went nuts every time I played the song at the Ragtime or at any of the other clubs and venues in the tristate area. Fans held their BIC lighters high in the air. I pleaded with Jack to get the label to release the song.
“We’re missing out, Jack,” I said, with a huge sense of urgency. “Tell ’em this is big. The song has to be out now!”
I was freaking out pretty hard.
One person who agreed with me was Leticia Finley, a stunning blonde who everyone called Tish. She was a former model, and her best friend first brought her to the Ragtime to see me. Then she and some of her other girlfriends came more regularly, enough that I recognized her. How could I not? She turned every head in the joint.
Every once in a while we talked, until we had a little friendship going. She had two beautiful small children, Brandi, four, and Trace, two. She knew about my record deal. One night I asked if I could drive her home and she said yes. We sat out front of her house and talked till the sun came up. I played her “Some Gave All” on my car stereo.
“That might be your best song,” she said.
“I think so, too.”
“With the Gulf War going on, you ought to get your record company to put it out soon,” she said.
“That’s what I keep telling ’em,” I said. “I think I’m going to die before it ever comes out.”
And I meant it. The club was so full of wild girls and drunken guys, so crowded, and there was so little oxygen and so much craziness, I felt like I was suffocating. I couldn’t even go on a break without everyone trying to make me happy in some way. I knew if something didn’t happen to get me out of there, someone was going to kill me. It was like a premonition. Something bad was going to happen if something else didn’t happen first.
In early June, I finally went back into the studio. Joe and Jim and Harold and me and Buddy Cannon, the head of A&R, picked out nine songs: “Could’ve Been Me,” “She’s Not Cryin’ Anymore,” “Wher’m I Going to Live?” “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” “Someday, Somewhere, Somehow,” “Never Thought I’d Fall in Love with You,” “Ain’t No Good Goodbye,” “I’m So Miserable,” and “Some Gave All,” which was already done. They wanted one more song.
My producers played humongous roles in shaping the album. Jim was from Memphis and had a résumé of feel-good music, and Joe was a good ol’ boy from Tennessee who had a good set of ears for a hit song. Right before we began to record, they came to the Ragtime one night to hear us. It had been awhile since they’d seen me live, and to capture the right feel on the album, they had to see me play there.
Joe drove up to Huntington one day to rehearse me and the band, and on a break we all walked to Terry Shelton’s apartment. On the way there, Joe said he had a song he wanted me to hear. At Terry’s, we sat down at the kitchen table. Joe took out a tape and put it in Terry’s boom box. Right before pressing PLAY, he said, “You might think I’m crazy, but I think this thing’s a hit.”
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
After a few guitar licks, a voice started to sing:
You can tell the world, you never was my girl
You can burn my clothes up when I’m gone…
After two more lines I jumped out of my chair, raised my arms in the air, and exclaimed, “That’s me! That’s me! I love it!” It was pure bar-band southern rock-stompin’ fun, a good time waiting to happen, and I knew people would want to dance to it. I could hardly sit still myself. Nor could I resist singing along to the chorus:
Don’t tell my heart, my achy breaky heart
I just don’t think it’d understand
And if you tell my heart, my achy breaky heart,
He might blow up and kill this man.
The song, a sad but whimsical take on love, was called “Don’t Tell My Heart.” Don Von Tress, a Vietnam veteran who’d been making his living hanging wallpaper, was the songwriter. We found out the Oak Ridge Boys and Ronnie Milsap had both thought about recording the song but then passed. The Marcy Brothers, a trio from Northern California, did record a version earlier that year, but they changed some of the words. I thank God I didn’t hear any version other than the demo of Don banging it out on his flattop guitar.
That’s what I heard, that’s what I loved, that’s what I built off of. Once I got a hold of it, I never let that song out of my grasp.
I loved it.
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And I knew Joe was right. It was going to be a hit.
We went back to the bar, worked it up right there and then, and played the song that night. Actually, we played it in every set because people kept wanting to hear it. It was fun.
Working on a budget of less than six figures—$92,000 to be exact—we spent two weeks recording the rest of the songs. We started at nine in the morning and quit between eleven and midnight. Every day was a marathon. I didn’t know any other way. There’d been so much press in the tristate area about my signing and the album that I was already a big star, but I knew if I didn’t execute the album I was going to look like a fool.
What’s the saying? A man’s big chance is only as great as his preparation.
I thought about that constantly.
I’d cut a track, sing, do overdubs with different instruments, then sing, get a good vocal, and then do harmonies. I wouldn’t leave at night unless we had a good rough mix. That was the way I had done it for years: marathons, focus, staying in the moment, capturing the music while it was hot.
Harold Shedd was the boss, the overseer of the songs, the final word. But he had good instincts, and his instincts were to let me follow my gut. There weren’t any rules for an artist like me, because I didn’t fit into any specific mold. Periodically, Harold brought someone in and played them “Don’t Tell My Heart,” and the reaction was always the same: they’d say, “This is going to be big. This is huge.”
During the recording, I literally lived in my car—my Chevy Beretta. We had Shoney’s Inn to shit, shower, and shave, but my car was my office, closet, and home base. On the day of the photo session for the album cover, I parked it down by the Cumberland River in downtown Nashville. Photographer Peter Nash, who’d worked with Alabama, Emmylou Harris, and Waylon Jennings, liked that location and had planned a bunch of different setups and wardrobe changes near there. However, as I got out of my car, in the clothes that I had put on that morning, I said, “Hey, why don’t you just shoot me here?”
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