November 30, 2022 • 48 mins
With his steamy good looks and painted-on jeans, muscley, mulletted country newcomer Billy Ray Cyrus came out of nowhere with a hit that catapulted him to superstardom. But he and his butt also became the butt of many, many jokes. Still, if his 1992 crossover smash, “Achy Breaky Heart,” is widely regarded as one of the cheesiest songs of all time, its music video transformed line dancing into a global sensation, and turned legions of top 40 listeners on to a genre they’d previously dismissed.
In this episode, we delve into Cyrus’ complicated legacy, the lasting influence of his notorious hairstyle, and how he had the last laugh when he returned to the pop charts nearly three decades later to break records and once again flip the world of country upside down.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Where Were You In ninety two is a production of
I Heart Radio And this song is an American pop
icon and one of the biggest country hits of all time.
Either you love it, you hate it, you can never
deny the far reaching appeal. Welcome to Where Are You?
(00:25):
In a podcast in which I your host Jason Lautier,
look back at the major hits, one hit wonders, shocking
news stories, and irresistible scandals that shaped what might be
the wildest, most eclectic, most controversial twelve months of music ever.
This week before a party in the USA, there was
(00:46):
the party in the Back. This is the story of
an inescapable ditty, a boot shuffling dance craze, and an
irrepressible hairstyle that took the world by storm. With his
steamy good looks and painted on jeans, must molded country phenom,
Billy Ray Cyrus came out of nowhere where the hit
that catapulted him to superstardom, But he and his butt
(01:08):
also became the butt of many many jokes. While his
breakout smash Achy Breaky Heart is widely regarded as one
of the dumbest songs of all time, it's music video
turned line dancing into a global sensation and turned legions
of young listeners onto a struggling, waning genre. In this episode,
we dive into Cyrus's goofy, complicated legacy and the lasting
(01:31):
influence of his untamed locks, but we'll also detail how
the singer had the last laugh when he returned the
pop charts decades later to break records and once again
turned the world of country upside down. Juliette Lamb lives
(01:55):
in Richardson, Texas, a city about fifteen miles outside Dallas.
She used to an immigration but it is now retired.
When she's not taking care of her nine year old mother,
she teaches line dancing at two different places. Half Finds
Recreations Center in Richardson and play No Senior Recreations Center
in Plano, a city in North Texas. She usually caps
her classes at around twenty five students, the youngest of
(02:17):
whom were in their fifties, the oldest in their eighties.
Lamb was born and raised in Taiwan, but came to
Texas in ninety three for their education. She'd never seen
people line dancing until a friend took her to a
Christmas party on a ranch in two thousand two, and
I was asked to join them to try to dance.
I told them I don't know how to line dancing.
(02:39):
They said, don't worry, just you know, join us and try.
I did. I tried and they liked it. So the
following months, in January two thousand three, I started taking
line dance classes. Lambetta always loved dancing, so she picked
up line dancing very quickly. By two thousand seven, she
(03:01):
was teaching classes of her own. Since then, she's choreographed
more than seventy routines, conducted workshops in the US, Canada,
and Taipei, and racked up two Dancers Choice Awards and
two Crystal Boot Awards, including one in two thousand fifteen
for International Instructor of the Year. She says she's by
no means of pro but watch some of her YouTube
(03:21):
videos and as clear as this lady knows what she's doing.
Lamb choreographed her own number for Billy Ray Cyrus country
and pop smash Achy Breaky Heart in two thousand eight,
after doing some research and learning that the hugely popular
line dance that accompany the release of the single would
be too hard for her beginner's classes. Lamb teaches her
achy breaky Heart routine a mix of grape vines, hitches,
(03:44):
heal and toe moves, kick stumps, and claps to this day.
For people who have very little line dance experience, or
for people who had no line dance experience, they can
easily tried and learn. So she didn't discover this song's
original line dance or see its music video until more
than a decade after it came out. Lamb loved Cyrus's
(04:05):
achy breaking Heart when she first heard back when you'd
have to be headless to successfully avoid it. I liked
his voice, um I. I thought the song has a
very catchy tune. It has a very strong beat um
and it was very evenly phrased. She has since watched
(04:26):
the video, taking in Billy Ray Cyrus and all his
honky glory. She's also properly listened to the lyrics and
which he pleads with the woman who dumped him to
keep his heart in the dark about it, fearing that
the damaged organ will blow up and kill him. Lamb's
own heart goes out to the song's jilted Moby narrator,
but she also now has a fuller picture of the
(04:49):
hysteria that ensued when Cyrus burst onto the scene. His
album so nine million copies worldwide and made him a
house world nar in older one hundred languages. And that's incredible. Yeah,
(05:12):
it is incredible, And given cyrus Is cheesiness, some would
say incredibly ridiculous. But when Lamb insists that no one
can deny the song's power, she's right. If you didn't
love it, can break your heart or Cyrus's neck warming
Kentucky waterfall, that's marvelous slang for a mullet, or all
that fancy honky tong footwork you at least secretly or
(05:36):
not so secretly loved to hate it all. And well,
you gotta give Cyrus props. He knew a hit when
he heard one, something he again demonstrated with a certain
record shattering collaboration he left on just a few years ago.
And man, did this guy hustle. But to truly understand
how to truly appreciate who Billy Ray Cyrus is, you
(05:59):
for got to know who he was. Before Billy Ray
Cyrus became a household name, the man with the plan
and the iconic mullet, he was just a guy from
Flatwoods Kentucky. He didn't even originally intend to become a singer.
He was an athlete, specifically a baseball player, which might
(06:19):
explain those insane tree trunky biceps. He loved to show
off all the time. Yeah, Billy Ray Cyrus was fighting
for the right to bear arms. And when you got
arms like that, you've got to fight for your right
man anyway. Cyrus's dad, Ron Cyrus, was a steelworker turned
politician who also played guitar, and his grandfather was a
(06:40):
Pentecostal preacher. Billy grew up listening to gospel and bluegrass
and started singing at a young age. He tried playing
his dad's guitar, but because he was left handed, he couldn't,
so he abandoned the pastime. Billy Ray left hander here
and I have literally been there. He eventually got a
baseball scholarship to Georgetown College, a private Christian college in
(07:00):
George Town, Kentucky, but his heart just wasn't in the game.
He wanted to start a band, so five weeks in
his first semester, he dropped out of school to pay
the bills. He drove a forklift at a cigarette warehouse,
and one day, while taking a break and letting the
tunes from a West Virginia pop radio station wash over him.
He heard a promo for a Neil Diamond concert. The
(07:21):
eighth person to call the station would win two free tickets.
Cyrus one. It was the first time he'd ever won
anything on his own. Semial Diamond to perform hits like
Sweet Caroline was a divine defining experience for Cyrus, which
(07:41):
fair that concert would change his life forever. His days
of playing Catcher were over. He found a left handed
guitar and formed a band called Slide Up enlisting his
brother Kebo, two guys from the cigarette wahouse who played
bass and drums, and another guitar player and to enjoined him.
Yea by Cyrus had ditched his job at the warehouse
(08:06):
to focus on music. Ernest do that he was, he
wrote down his goals. 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. I will be known as the
next Elvis Presley. My gorgeous, perfect mullet will make the
(08:30):
history books and change fashion forever. Okay I added that
last bit, but I'm not wrong. It was a slow
climb for Sly Dog. They worked the bar circuit. Cyrus
tried to make it out in Los Angeles, living out
of his Chevy Burretta. As he told USA Today in
two thousand seventeen, quote, I was always just one failure
away from resigning to the fact that maybe I need
(08:51):
to go get a real job. I would have gone
back to Flatwoods. Finally, after nearly ten years of being
told no, Cyrus landed a record here with Mercury Nashville Records. Well,
he toiled away on new music. He and Sly Dog
continued to perform for local fans at their steady gig
at the Ragtime Lounge in Huntington, West Virginia. But if
(09:13):
his career was about to explode, he'd wind up needing
another aspiring songwriter to light the fuse. Don von Truss
was a Tennessee based military veteran whose day job was
hanging wallpaper. He played with some bands at high school,
but his plans of pursuing music were halted when he
was sent to serve in the Vietnam War. When he returned,
(09:33):
he continued dabbling in it in his free time. One
day in he was fooling around with the guitar and
drum machine and his sister's basement. Two simple chords later,
and he had the bones of a tune that would
eventually become a key breaky heart. He explained to Rolling
Stone in two thousand seventeen that a vision came to
him while writing it. Quote, I saw kids dancing in
(09:56):
my mind, and I remember telling my wife that, and
she thought I was a little grewey. Undeterred by his
judge wife, von Trust presented the ditty to a friend
who worked in music publishing. He told him he had
to finish it and not to get a co songwriter.
Sensing immediately that I had a future on the charts,
so von Trast completed the song and teamed up with
(10:19):
his friend to whip up a demo. As he recalled
in a two thousand nineteen interview with the newspaper of
the Tennessee and quote, everybody was jumping up and down
about the song. Really, something in us told us it
had great potential. Von Trast started shopping it around, knowing
darn well the competition in Nashville was fierce and there
were no guarantees. Meanwhile, Billy Ray. Cyrus and his team
(10:46):
had chosen nine songs for his debut album, Some Gave All,
the title track of which was a tribute to folks
who had served in the military. Yeah, you can see
where this is going. His producers and the head of
A and R wanted one more track. One day well,
Cyrus was on a break while rehearsing with his band
in Huntington's. His producer Joe Scape told him he had
(11:06):
a song he wanted to play him and Cyrus's guitarist
Terry Shelton's apartment. Scape sat down at the kitchen table
and popped a tape into Shelton's boom box, announcing, you
might think I'm crazy, but I think this thing is
a hit. He pressed play. Cyrus barely made it through
the first verse before leaping from his chair and shouting,
that's me, that's me. Love it. He knew instantly it
(11:29):
was special. He learned that the track called Don't Tell
My Heart was written by Don von Trust, Vietnam vet
who hung wallpaper for a living but love to write songs.
The demo was catching. The melody and the lines Don't
Tell My Heart by Achy breaking Heart got stuck in
your head, and it definitely seemed like something the crowds
at his shows would want to dance to. Not everyone
(11:57):
has such a warm response to the song. The gospel
and country quartet The Oak Ridge Boys had considered it,
but their front man Duane Ace Allen didn't like the
lyrics Achy Breaky Heart, so the band never recorded it.
Seems thirty years later, they're still kicking themselves for it,
but they wanted known that it wasn't all their fault.
In two thousand twenty, a post from their official Twitter
(12:18):
handle read true that Duyne Allen was not crazy over
the lyrics Achy Breaky, but it was r C Records
at the time that turned down the song. A still
had it in his pile of songs to be considered,
but those guys would kill for a time machine. Another group,
the Northern California trio The Mercy Brothers, also had an
issue with those lyrics. They recorded the song for their
(12:41):
self titled second album, but changed the words to don't
tell my heart my aching breaking heart. Sorry, don but
actually no, not sorry, don you lucky bastard, because Billy
did dig those lyrics, As he writes in his two
thousand thirteen memoir hill Billy Hart. Once I got ahold
of it, I never let that song out of my grasp.
(13:02):
I loved him. Indeed, he would grab Don't Tell My
Heart like the back of someone's moet and hold on
for dear life, dragging it all the way back to
the bar where he and his band would play it
that very night after he discovered it, and then he'd
ultimately dragged it all the way to the bank where
he'd cash up big fat check for a big fat hit.
(13:30):
But Cyrus's life was pretty nutty at this point. It
was bad enough he was living among heaps of cassettes
and microphones and various other crap in his Chevy burretta
will recording songs for some gave all worse after he
finished recording them. He lost his long time gig at
the Rag Time after he and his band stopped performing.
He left the bar one night because a fight he
had broken out there, Like I'm talking like guns, knives,
(13:51):
people getting tossed over tables kind of fight. So now
Cyrus was hustling again, taking gigs in North Carolina, Georgia,
Myrtle Beach, Virginia, Kentucky. Dude needed to catch a break
in a conference room full of Mercury executives in December nine,
Cyrus weighed in on a slew of decisions for his
forthcoming debut album, except for release in just a few months,
(14:13):
but he had a very strong opinion about what the
first single office should be. Don't Tell My Heart was
basically catinet for fans at his shows. He played it
and they had it straight to the dance floor, but
the title needed a tweak. Cyrus said, the name of
that song is wrong. Everybody calls it the achy breaky song.
They yell at out all night, play that achy breaky song.
(14:34):
He suggested they rename it achy Breaky Heart. The label agreed.
When Cyrus met Von Trust, they bonded straight away. As
Cyrus recalled to the Village Voice in two quote, he
thanked me for writing some gave all, and I thanked
him for his service. I asked him if he ever
wondered if the name of the song is achy breaky Heart,
and he said, call it what you want to call it,
(14:55):
just put it out. We let her loose. Von Truss
even joined Cyrus's b and and toured with him for
a decade. Cyrus has called on Trust his quote unquote
musical soulmate, and they wanted to collaborate for thirty years.
One safety, Breaky Heart was set as the lead single.
Mercury's promotions team developed a strategy to get the song
(15:16):
major exposure. They couldn't deny Cyrus's beefcake status. He had
a cherubic face and intense, piercing eyes that seemed to
stare into your soul. But he was also hairy, chested
and virile. He wore baggy sleeveless shirts, allowing his nipples
to play peekaboo with his audiences. Women lusted after him,
and no doubt some men did too. He also had moves.
(15:39):
The label knew what needed to play up all that
charisma and the tracks music video, so it decided to
spotlight Cyrus performing a key Breaky Heart live as Sandy niece.
Mercury's then director of public relations told the Tennessee and
we were going to turn on women all over the
country and put a demand on country radio to play
(15:59):
that song. They shot the video in January at the
Paramount Art Center in Ashland, Kentucky, filling it with a
swarm of fans that included Cyrus's sister, his future wife
Tish and his newly ex wife, Cindy. As he notes
in his memoir, it may be the only music video
ever made with both the singer's ex wife and future
(16:21):
wife in it. This guy at Cojones positioned in the
front row of the audience some heavily permed, hot and
bothered ladies who, when not oddly, and the singer were
engaging in some serious synchronized boot scooting. It's actually quite impressive,
almost as impressive as a number of rhyan stones and
cans of hairspray holding their looks together. You see, Mercury
(16:46):
had enlisted country singer Lee Greenwood's ex wife Melanie Greenwood,
to choreograph a line dance to accompany the song. There was, however,
a collaborative effort. When Cyrus and his team met with Greenwood,
he was impressed by her line dancing skills, but thought
that the dance needed something distinctive to make a stand out.
Greenwood asked him what he did when he's saying a
key breaky heart for audiences. He swiveled his hips slightly.
(17:09):
She incorporated that saucy little move into her coreo. In
addition to the music video, Cyrus's label produced an eleven
minute line Dance tutorial video, which is sent to bars
and clubs across the US. It also sponsored a national
dance contest. The line Dance caught fire before the singer's
(17:30):
debut album even hit shelves, and by the end of March,
a Key Breaky Heart and landed on billboards Hot Country
Singles Chart before the single had even officially been released.
In Robert k Orman was working as a music reporter
(17:52):
for the Tennessee and and covering Music Row National's Musical
Epicenter for USA Today. He was the first reporter in
Nashville to do a story on Billy Ray Cyrus. He
spent days with the singer, riding horses and motorbikes with
him for TV specially directed. Orman attributes the Ikey Breaky
pandemonium to changes in both Nashville and in pop music.
(18:13):
You see, by the time Ikey Breaky Heart blew up,
Nashville had already begun to evolve. Neo traditionalist acts like
Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, and the Judds had reinvigorated country music,
and we're attracting a younger demographic. As with pop music,
the genres visual component had become as important as the
artist's sound. Nashville was starting to shed its silly Hehaw
(18:35):
image for something hipper. Meanwhile, pop had undergone its own changes.
Says Ormond. There was a void in pop music at
the time that pop had forgotten that people like to dance.
Then along came billy, bridging the gap between country and pop,
and so here came this phenomenon out of country music,
initially out of Texas of people blind dancing to songs,
(19:00):
and Akey Breaky was designed and perfectly placed to become
one of the leading songs of that sub genre, that
that line dance genre. And Billie was beautiful, he was gorgeous,
and uh, it was just a perfect confluence of the song,
the singer, and the trend of country line dancing. They
all sort of came together in that moment. Cyrus was
(19:23):
a bit of a wild card, and the video for
Achy Breaky Heart. He doesn't look like other male country
singers of the era. First off, instead of a stets
and hat on top of his head, he has a thick,
dark nest of hair and a ship ton more cascading
down his shoulders. Instead of cowboy boots, he sports white sneakers.
His shirt is unbuttoned and oversized. His jeans are skin tight.
(19:46):
He dances around the stage using confidence and sexuality, like
he's about to do his strip tease at any moment.
Rumors later swirled that he was a former Chippendale dancer.
Both buff and pretty. He blurs gender lines. He knows
he's a fox. Billy. Ray Cyrus was a country disruptor
and a pop disruptor. He had the full UH package
(20:10):
in April two, just a month after it had descended
upon Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. A Key Breaky Heart
took its sad shattered little blood pumping organ to the
number one spot and stayed there for five weeks. Meanwhile,
by May of that year, the single was a pop
crossover hit, reaching number four on the Billboard Hot One.
(20:32):
It became the first country single to go platinum since
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's three hit Islands in the Stream.
Von Trust recalled to the Tennessee and that manufacturers literally
couldn't keep up with the demand for the single. He
said they even stopped selling it worried it would quote
cannibalize from the album. After that album, some gave All
(20:54):
was released in May. It's sword to number one on
Billboard's Country and Hop Album charts, eventually going platinum nine
times over and selling twenty million copies worldwide, and wait
for It ended up becoming the biggest selling debut album
by a male artist ever. At the thirty five Grammy Awards,
(21:17):
A Key Breaky Heart was nominated for Record of the
Year and Best Male Country Vocal Performance, and Cyrus was
nominated for Best New Artists. So we went home empty handed.
A Key Breaky Heart was named Single of the Year
by Country Music Association Awards. The song became truly inescapable.
(21:37):
It was an international smash that was essentially played on
the radio on loop to the point that it started
driving people insane. Up next, we explored the backlash to
Billy Ray's Party in the Back. M Billy Ray. Cyrus's
(22:15):
Achy Breaky Heart was suddenly everywhere, not only blowing up
in the US, but also hitting number one in Australia, Canada,
and New Zealand and number three in the UK. But
because of the singles omnipresence and the way it's once
catchy lyrics and melody metastasized into something thoroughly grading it
(22:35):
harvested a bountiful crop of haters. In a two thousand
seventeen interview with Banner graphic Don von Trust admitted quote,
there was a little backlash after a while. I heard
stories about people threatening some radio stations that were playing
it repeatedly. And you know, Cyrus's whole vibe was pretty polarizing.
In fact, he pretty much became one of the most
(22:57):
polarizing someone say, detested figures of music that year, says
country music historian Robert Orman. He was country, there was
no question about it. But he was also breaking the
mold a little bit um by by his visual presentation. Uh,
the long hair, the cut off of clothes, the just
(23:19):
everything was a little just a little bit different and
a little bit backwoods and a little bit off. He
was not like other other people at the time. He
was used his own thing. Cyrus faced the same criticism
that Katie Lang had faced. She was another country singer
who dared to dance with abandon and La Goofy. Like her,
(23:40):
Cyrus shook up the genre, challenged gender stereotypes, and emphasized
country's pop potential. In doing so, he too elicited some
double takes. Shane of Golden persch Bocker as a professor
of music studies at Temple University and the author of
Queer Country, a book releases year that examines queer and
trans performers in country in americonomy It. Her research focuses
(24:02):
on how history and identity, gender raise ethnicity, class, sexuality,
shape music, and vice versa. She reiterates Robert Ormond's opinion
the billy's unconventional style and approach to country threw off
some country purists. When we talk about men, we you know,
complement them on their brilliance and um their minds, you know,
(24:22):
and we don't draw attention to their bodies in the
way that we draw attention to women's bodies. And I
noticed that song draws a lot of attention and its
lyrics to body parts, not just the achy breaking heart,
but all different body parts and the way that they're
responding to his feelings and his rejection, his romantic rejection.
And so yeah, I think that sort of questions the
(24:45):
masculinity of the song in a way. The song is
a little weird. Cyrus's heart, or rather the narrator's heart,
is referred to as he don't tell my heart my
achy breaky Heart. I just don't think he'd understand. So
it's a totally separate entity from the singers had him brains,
and Cyrus is not only drawing all his attention to
(25:06):
his body parts and in a way objectifying himself further,
he's also delighting in rhymes and lyrics that for many
readers hokey, insincere, and like a parody of country, like
we saw with Katie Lang. Embracing the honky tonk humor.
The hillbilly humor of country music in the late eighties
(25:28):
and the early nineties was dangerous to the country industry
because they were putting forth a much more serious image
of country music, and ever since the Nashville Sound marketed
country music to a much wider audience, people on the coasts,
(25:49):
middle class people. They were trying to attract people to
hearing these stories and relating to them and not encouraging
some of that hillbilly humor that could bring shame to
working class and rural people, and it certainly did with
with things like the book and movie Deliverance, you know,
making people feel embarrassed to be from Appalachia and from
(26:12):
rural communities and be working class people and So for
Billy ray Cyris to come, you know, immediately out of
the gate with a crossover hit perhaps already made people suspicious.
And then um, he's dancing, and he's you know, sexy
and has a mullet and is singing all about his
(26:34):
different body parts and his heartbreak. Um, maybe that's enough
in that moment to make it a question for some people.
Singer Travis Tripp was one of those people. He questions
IRUs is seriousness, authenticity and stage presence, and was in
no hurry to release the Wiggle. In June, the popular
(26:54):
country Artists made his feelings abundantly clear to the press,
saying ikey Breaky Heart was quote unquote frivolous and that
a success suggested that country music was deteriorating into a
quote unquote as spiggling contest says Robert Orman. Country stars
male and female, generally do not move. They pretty much
stand there and present the song Billy did. Billy danced
(27:17):
on stage, Um, and that was unusual for the time,
And I think that is why men didn't flock to
him the way women did. I think men are uncomfortable
with men that are too good looking, and if they
dance on stage, that's kind of like, that's not manly
or that's not you know that in country music, that
(27:39):
was not done. Cyrus writes in his memoir hill Billy
Hart that he considered responding to trits dis but his
politician father talked him out of it, saying, son, you
have to take it as a compliment that you made
someone so upset. You can't have so many people out
there love that thing without having someone hated. You. Don't
say nothing. You just go about your busines us okay,
(28:01):
But Cyrus didn't totally take his dad's advice. At the
American Music Awards, where he won Favorite New Country Artist
and a key Breaky Heart won Favorite Country Single, the
singer took the opportunity to read his adversary as he
hit the stage and accepted the statue for Favorite Country Single.
He shouted, Tonight, this award is from you, the fans,
(28:23):
and as far as I'm concerned, to those people who
don't like aky Breaky Heart, here's a quarter call someone
who cares. Cyrus's remark refer to Travis Tritt hit Here's
a quarter called someone who cares. A single that, unlike
Cyrus song never made its number one that's right. That evening,
the City Library was open, and Billy Ray cyrus through
(28:44):
Travis Tritt's inferior number two single at Him the Shade.
But the iron mockery didn't stop there. Reacting to the
song's ubiquity, weird Al Yankovic penned a spoof a Key
Breaky Song, in which he beg DJ's not to play
the single, rattling off a list of divisive musical artists
(29:05):
he'd rather hear Aba Barry Manilow, Vanilla Ice, Nucas on
the Block, Tiffany Yoko Ono. He even went so far
as they say he preferred they quote unquote time met
a chair and kick me down the stairs. The hatred
The song got quite a bit of play on country
radio stations, but Yankovic admitted that it was a little
(29:25):
rude and gentleman that he is. Included a message in
the liner notes of Al Palooza, the album on which
Akey Bricky Song appears. He wrote all songwriting proceeds from
Akey Breaky Song will be donated to the United Cerebral
Palsy Association. Responding to a question from a fan about
a Yankovic explained both the writer of aky, Bracky Heart
(29:45):
and I were a little uncomfortable over the fact that
the parody was a little bit well means spirited, so
we thought it would kind of take the edge off
of it if we donated all the songwriting proceeds to
a worthy charity see such a gentleman, as if we
needed another reason to love weird. Tabloids also found an
easy target in Cyrus, with one reporting about his alleged
(30:07):
Chippindal's past. Come on it sort of tracks, however, in
April nineteen, when they reported that a young waitress had
given birth to his child while a different woman his
current main squeeze at the time, Trish, was pregnant. Well
that was a fact, Massy. Let you know who else
found an easy target in Mr Cyrus Elephant and the
(30:29):
Goddamn Chipmunks, who covered a key breaking Heart in the
fall of on their country album Chipmunks and Low Places.
But you know Cyrus went ahead and joined it on
the fun, contributing some speaking parts to the song, which
reached number seventy one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs
chart and became the trio's first entry on any Billboard chart.
(30:49):
Thirty two years go, Chipmunks so maybe everyone won in
this case. More than a decade later, the Hecklers were
still beyond the bio. On the two thousand four special
v H one and Blender Magazine present fifty Most Awesomely
(31:11):
Bad Songs ever, Aky Barky Heart came in at number two,
just behind Starships We Built the City, a song that
pretty much everyone agrees sucks ass. But Cyrus also had
some heroes on a side. For example, Bruce Springsteen covered
ay Breaking Heart live, declaring I don't care what anybody says,
It's a damn good little rock song. And when Cyrus
(31:32):
got a letter in the mail from Johnny Cash, his
Achy Breaky Heart nearly gave out altogether. In the letter,
Cash wrote, thirty six years ago, I was working with
Elvis and saw him take the same kind of flak
you're taking now. Congratulations on the way you're handling it.
All in your case as an Elvis's the good outweighs
the bad. Let him have it. I'm in your corner.
(31:55):
Laugh all you want, haters, but have you ever got
a letter from Johnny Cash? But here's the thing. As
much as folks thought Billy Ray, Cyrus was just some
lucky himbo. He actually was quite self aware, as he
writes in his memoir Hilboly Heart, Trust Me, I knew
a Aikey breaking heart. It was either love it or
hate it. There was no middle ground, not with a
(32:18):
song that big. It turns out Cyrus wasn't a clueless
beefcake dude was a savvy businessman. He knew what audience
has wanted, how to market himself, and ultimately how to
adapt and shapeshift to sustain his celebrity. He parlayed the
massive success of Some Gave All into an acting career,
even landing a bit part in David Lynch's moody film
(32:38):
moholland Drive. Okay, admittedly he was playing a himbo pool
boy in that one, but he also showed up in
the series doc The Nannie and Diagnosed his murder, and
a Toronto stage production of Annie Get Your Gun. Oh,
and remember how the Gossip Rags reported that Cyrus had
knocked up two women within the same year. Well, following
(32:59):
all that famine fortune, his wife Trish gave birth to
their first child, her name Destiny Hope Cyrus, or as
we know her today, Miley Cyrus and two thousand and
six Billy Ray and Miley unveiled their Disney show Hannah
Montana to the world. The series, about a teenage girl
named Miley who's leading a double life as a pop
(33:21):
star Hannah Montana while navigating adolescence, ran for four seasons.
On it, Billy Ray played her dad, Robbie Ray. Yeah,
they didn't really try to vail things here, Billy Ray.
Cyrus was aware of his outsider status and Nashville and
in pop, knowing he could just fade away and fall
into some one hit wonder Ubliette. The key to longevity,
(33:41):
as it always has been, was reinvention. Achy Breaky Heart
has been recorded in languages like Welsh, Japanese, and Spanish.
The Mexican Quintet Cabayo Dorado turned the song into a
wedding classic in Mexico in the mid nineties. In two
thousand seventeen, to sell breat Sinco de Mayo and the
twenty anniversary of Thanky Bricky Heart, Cyrus teamed up with
(34:04):
them to re record their versions Masks, which Cyrus and
Von Trust produced. Cyrus continued to release country tunes sixteen
studio albums total. However, no one would be as huge
as Some Gave All, which was the best selling album,
spending seventeen consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard
(34:27):
two hundred at that point, the longest time spent by
a debut artist at number one. He never had another
solo pop hit after Aki Berkey Heart, But did he
really need to? The man gave us Hannah Montana. If
you're still not convinced that Mr Mullet had the last laugh,
(34:48):
I have three words for you, Old Town Road. We
all know how the story goes by now, clever social
media star and musical upstar records a country trap song.
It starts a sending the Hot Country Songs chart until
Billboard disqualifies it, claiming it doesn't count his country social
media star, who had already tweeted that he wanted Billy
(35:09):
Ray on his song since he loved him from his
Hannah Montana days, gets him too, not only voices support
of the song, but re recorded with the Upstart as
a duet. The man who in two turned country on
its stuffy old dance hating head re emerged in two
thousand nineteen to part the Tumbleweeds, kick up the dirt
(35:30):
and show everyone that there was a new shareff in
town Well, a sheriff and a deputy. In this case,
he saw potential in this young whipper snapper and saw
a bit of himself and him too. He had also
been deemed unworthy by certain country muckey MUCKs. I've been
watching everything going on with O t R. When I
(35:52):
got thrown out the charts, Well and Jennings said to me,
take this as a compliment. Means you're doing something great,
Cyrus tweeted to him. Only outlaws are outlawed. Welcome to
the club. The rest is chart history. Soon came The
Old Town Road Remix, a duet between twenty year old
(36:13):
rapper singer Little Nasax and Billy Ray Cyrus of their
record breaking nineteen weeks It's spent at number one in
the Billboard Hot one hundred. Eighteen of them were credited
to both Nasax and Cyrus. The song became Cyrus's first
number one single on the Hot one hundred and also
one in his first Grammy Awards, one for Best Pop
(36:37):
Duo Group Performance and another for Best Music Video. In
joining forces, these outlaws created something universally beloved, something that
transcended genre and appealed to so so many listeners, says
Shane of Golden persch Bocker. That remixed version immediately, you know,
(36:59):
authentic the song for some country listeners, but also um
as Little no Sex says, it attracted people who had
had thought that they would be turned off by country music.
Like Aky Bricky Heart, Old Town Road was absurd and ubiquitous,
but this time was Internet, and like Aky Bricky Heart,
it had country traditionalists up in arms. Who was this
(37:22):
kid who came out of nowhere with no experience or
dues paid in Nashville to take country, hip hop and
pop by the balls. But also, like Cyrus, Little Nozex
proved to detractors he wasn't going anywhere, well except to
Hell to give Satana lap dance. The parallels between these
two singers stories are uncanny. Both were college shopouts who
(37:46):
became overnight sensations after putting out a massive hit single
and serving a head turning look that totally disrupted country music.
A collaboration seemed too perfect, like a foregone conclusion. You know,
when Little nos Sex came around with this invitation to
collaborate and remix the song, it was the next great opportunity,
(38:10):
you know, to be reintroduced to another another audience. Um
to be playful in the same kind of way around
country music, you know, to not to not have such
strict boundaries and kind of solemness around it, but to
have a little fun with it and also do something
that's clearly country music. Right. They're they're black cowboys, going
(38:33):
back to the very beginning, so it's it's authentic in
that way. Up next week, splore what is arguably the
most notorious element of the cyrusmithils his mullet. As we
(38:56):
go behind the Hair, behind the Man, we're left wondering
was Billy Ray Cyrus actually onto something. We've spent this
(39:20):
episode talking about Billy Ray Cyrus, but you can't talk
about the man without talking about the mullet. Like Sampson
or any respectable drag queen, Cyrus was only as good
as his wig. Preparing to revisit Ikey Breaky Heart all
these years later, I couldn't tell you half the lyrics
to the song. I certainly couldn't remember any of the coreo.
(39:42):
But the mullet is permanently seared into my brain, into
all of our brains. It's a tell as old as time.
If Cyrus took an old Town Road straight to come back.
Bliss in two thousand nineteen his legendary token, We've soon followed.
The mullet a ka the Mississippi mud Flap a k a.
(40:03):
The Tennessee top Hat a k a. The beaver Paddle
a k eight. The Kentucky Waterfall has been enjoying a
renaissance the past few years. Call it the Tiger King effect.
Or maybe it was all those months spent in lockdown
when salons and barber shops were closed and we had
no choice but to let everything go to ship or
(40:23):
and a lovely twist none of us could have expected.
Maybe it was Billy Ray's own daughter, Miley Cyrus, who
sparked the modern mullet movement, not without the help of
Rihanna and Zendia. Though whatever the reason, whoever is to
blame or thank, the mullet is once again making the rounds.
It's popped up in runway shows for Alexander McQueen Blanciaga, Kenzo,
(40:45):
Rick Owens, and Sella McCartney, And on the Red carpet
Who could forget when none other than Little nos X
rocked up with the two thousand twenty one MTV Music
Awards boasting a Jerry Curl mullet and eleven or halfpence
suit half gowned by a Telly Versacchi. Meanwhile, the USA
Mullet Championships launched in including Men's, Kids, teens, and fee
(41:06):
mullet divisions. Magda rich Co is the founder of Harari,
a gender neutral, all inclusive barbershop with locations in Brooklyn,
New York City, and Los Angeles. She's been giving modern
mullets for fifteen years, but she says these days the
account for thirty tot of her business. She considers the
mullet to be more than just a zoom friendly hairstyle
(41:28):
for folks working from home. You know, the old saying
business in front, party in the back. So I feel
like Amala is a liberal of like a rebellion, and
when a person gets Amla, they're just kind of like,
you know, showing people that they're not going to have
a hair in the back, you know, to the collar.
They're more of a rebel or you know, just somebody
(41:49):
who wants to have a good time and have a fun,
trendy haircut. Rich Co discovered Billy Ray Cyrus in middle
school through a girlfriend who was really into country. She
thought a key breaky heart was catchy and liked his look. Yeah,
I mean I thought it was cool. I was definitely
inspiration for like gay guys. Cyrus often comes up in
clients looking for mullet cuts head a priori. But if
(42:10):
he's the most name checked celebrity of her male clients,
they figured out ways to personalize their mullets. Does that
just wat People are just like go and deconstruct, you know,
whatever was to make it more original and like more
current for the times. The number of modern mullet variations
is staggering. There's a Kentucky waterfall, the baseball mullet, the
(42:34):
ziggy stardust mullet, which of course David Bowie made famous,
the mohawk mullet combo, the Pompador mullet, the shag mullet,
the mullet with countless different fades, and the wolf cut,
which Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus have launted recently. In
my neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn, I've seen pretty much every
(42:54):
last one of them. Turns out, Billy Ray Cyrus was
onto something as rich co test. The mullet is actually
incredibly versatile. It's possibilities are endless. It's you know, also
a lot of times like gender affirming or you know,
it's also gender neutral. So I think that's really cool
about it to anybody can have it. Furthermore, taking the
(43:16):
plunge into that Kentucky waterfall is a fast way to
show the world that you have zero fox left to give,
that you own the road, that you own your identity.
People are just I don't know, they get so much
life from it. When you know they have like a
regular hair, got really long hair, and then they come
in and they get a mullet makeover. Oh my god,
(43:37):
it's like a whole new persona comes up. You know,
the confidence and like the swag love mur hadum. Cyrus
had that swag, which is why he was able to
make millions of listeners swoon and get plenty of them
to strap on their boots and get in on the
latest dance craze. We can't deny the role his hairplate
in solidifying that swag. Cyrus may have ditched that mullet
(43:59):
years ago, but it's legacy lives on. When I asked
about his post Old Town Road future in a two
thousand nineteen New York Post interview, Cyrus replied, you want
me to be really honest with you. I was thinking
about retiring because to me, this is the perfect way
for me to go out for years and years, I said,
Man if I could ever just make it back to
(44:20):
the top, I think I just retire and quit at
the top. Never dreamy it could ever even be close
to possible. Lo and behold, this ride happens. And there's
been so many great ideas coming at me. That's why
I'm not going to retire, because I now have a
whole another album of some ideas with some people I
love to make some music with, and it turns me on.
(44:40):
The unfathomable crossover success of a debut novelty song kick
started Cyrus's career. The record chattering success of another twenty
seven years later reignited it. In September two, one Lele
nas X's debut single, Old Town Road, which morphed into
a collaboration with Cyrus Us, became certified fifteen times platinum
(45:03):
by the Reporting Industry Association of America, moving fifteen million units,
the first record ever to do so. Mr Mullet could
no longer be called the one hit wonder. Meanwhile, country
is hardly a dirty word in the pop world. Sure,
Little nas Ex quickly transitioned into hip hop and pop,
but country acts like Casey Musgraves, Marion Morris, and Orville
(45:24):
Peck not to mention, this artist you might have heard
of named Taylor Swift have substantial and dedicated followings and
critical acclaim to boot go ahead, don't tell your heart
that Cyrus helped instigate the country pop cross over three
decades ago. But you might be lying to it. Maybe,
just maybe we've been underestimating Billy Ray Cyrus all along,
(45:45):
says country music historian Robert Ormond. He did wonderful things
for the business. You know. He brought a lot of
ears to the to the business, and a lot of
young people to the business. And he's never really been
given the credit. I don't think that he should get
for for what he did. And yes it was it
was a novelty, and yes Old Town Road was a novelty.
(46:08):
But look, Little mass X went on to create to
surprise everyone by creating just as big as hits Um
in the in the hip hop genre. Like his signature hairstyle,
Cyrus proved to be surprisingly enduring. He knew he couldn't
be part of the mainstream country sound, and so he
(46:28):
developed a career as an actor, I know, and did
other things outside the genre and leading outside music to
to keep him on the on the radar. So yeah,
he did show him. Juliet lamb our Texas line danswer
would agree. Sure, she's biased. She thinks Cyrus is incredibly handsome,
and she's phoned all the way to Taiwan to teach
(46:50):
students her achy breaking heart dance routine. But she also
finds Cyrus's great and resilience inspiring. Well, I think you know,
by reading his biography, he taught me a good lesson.
He strikes me as a very persistent man. There's always
(47:10):
a voice inside his head told him he would be
a musician. He listened, so he clearly defined exactly what
he wanted to happen, and that's the way he reached
his dream. That's the story. Now, if you don't mind,
(47:41):
I'm going to go get my mouet touched up. Where
Were You in ninety two was the production of I
Heart Radio. The exactly of producers are Noel Brown and
(48:01):
Jordan run Talk. The show was researched, written and hosted
by me Jason Laffier, with editing and sound design by
Michael Alder June. If you like what you heard, please
subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts for
my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Where Were You In ninety two is a production of
I Heart Radio And this song is an American pop
icon and one of the biggest country hits of all time.
Either you love it, you hate it, you can never
deny the far reaching appeal. Welcome to Where Are You?
(00:25):
In a podcast in which I your host Jason Lautier,
look back at the major hits, one hit wonders, shocking
news stories, and irresistible scandals that shaped what might be
the wildest, most eclectic, most controversial twelve months of music ever.
This week before a party in the USA, there was
(00:46):
the party in the Back. This is the story of
an inescapable ditty, a boot shuffling dance craze, and an
irrepressible hairstyle that took the world by storm. With his
steamy good looks and painted on jeans, must molded country phenom,
Billy Ray Cyrus came out of nowhere where the hit
that catapulted him to superstardom, But he and his butt
(01:08):
also became the butt of many many jokes. While his
breakout smash Achy Breaky Heart is widely regarded as one
of the dumbest songs of all time, it's music video
turned line dancing into a global sensation and turned legions
of young listeners onto a struggling, waning genre. In this episode,
we dive into Cyrus's goofy, complicated legacy and the lasting
(01:31):
influence of his untamed locks, but we'll also detail how
the singer had the last laugh when he returned the
pop charts decades later to break records and once again
turned the world of country upside down. Juliette Lamb lives
(01:55):
in Richardson, Texas, a city about fifteen miles outside Dallas.
She used to an immigration but it is now retired.
When she's not taking care of her nine year old mother,
she teaches line dancing at two different places. Half Finds
Recreations Center in Richardson and play No Senior Recreations Center
in Plano, a city in North Texas. She usually caps
her classes at around twenty five students, the youngest of
(02:17):
whom were in their fifties, the oldest in their eighties.
Lamb was born and raised in Taiwan, but came to
Texas in ninety three for their education. She'd never seen
people line dancing until a friend took her to a
Christmas party on a ranch in two thousand two, and
I was asked to join them to try to dance.
I told them I don't know how to line dancing.
(02:39):
They said, don't worry, just you know, join us and try.
I did. I tried and they liked it. So the
following months, in January two thousand three, I started taking
line dance classes. Lambetta always loved dancing, so she picked
up line dancing very quickly. By two thousand seven, she
(03:01):
was teaching classes of her own. Since then, she's choreographed
more than seventy routines, conducted workshops in the US, Canada,
and Taipei, and racked up two Dancers Choice Awards and
two Crystal Boot Awards, including one in two thousand fifteen
for International Instructor of the Year. She says she's by
no means of pro but watch some of her YouTube
(03:21):
videos and as clear as this lady knows what she's doing.
Lamb choreographed her own number for Billy Ray Cyrus country
and pop smash Achy Breaky Heart in two thousand eight,
after doing some research and learning that the hugely popular
line dance that accompany the release of the single would
be too hard for her beginner's classes. Lamb teaches her
achy breaky Heart routine a mix of grape vines, hitches,
(03:44):
heal and toe moves, kick stumps, and claps to this day.
For people who have very little line dance experience, or
for people who had no line dance experience, they can
easily tried and learn. So she didn't discover this song's
original line dance or see its music video until more
than a decade after it came out. Lamb loved Cyrus's
(04:05):
achy breaking Heart when she first heard back when you'd
have to be headless to successfully avoid it. I liked
his voice, um I. I thought the song has a
very catchy tune. It has a very strong beat um
and it was very evenly phrased. She has since watched
(04:26):
the video, taking in Billy Ray Cyrus and all his
honky glory. She's also properly listened to the lyrics and
which he pleads with the woman who dumped him to
keep his heart in the dark about it, fearing that
the damaged organ will blow up and kill him. Lamb's
own heart goes out to the song's jilted Moby narrator,
but she also now has a fuller picture of the
(04:49):
hysteria that ensued when Cyrus burst onto the scene. His
album so nine million copies worldwide and made him a
house world nar in older one hundred languages. And that's incredible. Yeah,
(05:12):
it is incredible, And given cyrus Is cheesiness, some would
say incredibly ridiculous. But when Lamb insists that no one
can deny the song's power, she's right. If you didn't
love it, can break your heart or Cyrus's neck warming
Kentucky waterfall, that's marvelous slang for a mullet, or all
that fancy honky tong footwork you at least secretly or
(05:36):
not so secretly loved to hate it all. And well,
you gotta give Cyrus props. He knew a hit when
he heard one, something he again demonstrated with a certain
record shattering collaboration he left on just a few years ago.
And man, did this guy hustle. But to truly understand
how to truly appreciate who Billy Ray Cyrus is, you
(05:59):
for got to know who he was. Before Billy Ray
Cyrus became a household name, the man with the plan
and the iconic mullet, he was just a guy from
Flatwoods Kentucky. He didn't even originally intend to become a singer.
He was an athlete, specifically a baseball player, which might
(06:19):
explain those insane tree trunky biceps. He loved to show
off all the time. Yeah, Billy Ray Cyrus was fighting
for the right to bear arms. And when you got
arms like that, you've got to fight for your right
man anyway. Cyrus's dad, Ron Cyrus, was a steelworker turned
politician who also played guitar, and his grandfather was a
(06:40):
Pentecostal preacher. Billy grew up listening to gospel and bluegrass
and started singing at a young age. He tried playing
his dad's guitar, but because he was left handed, he couldn't,
so he abandoned the pastime. Billy Ray left hander here
and I have literally been there. He eventually got a
baseball scholarship to Georgetown College, a private Christian college in
(07:00):
George Town, Kentucky, but his heart just wasn't in the game.
He wanted to start a band, so five weeks in
his first semester, he dropped out of school to pay
the bills. He drove a forklift at a cigarette warehouse,
and one day, while taking a break and letting the
tunes from a West Virginia pop radio station wash over him.
He heard a promo for a Neil Diamond concert. The
(07:21):
eighth person to call the station would win two free tickets.
Cyrus one. It was the first time he'd ever won
anything on his own. Semial Diamond to perform hits like
Sweet Caroline was a divine defining experience for Cyrus, which
(07:41):
fair that concert would change his life forever. His days
of playing Catcher were over. He found a left handed
guitar and formed a band called Slide Up enlisting his
brother Kebo, two guys from the cigarette wahouse who played
bass and drums, and another guitar player and to enjoined him.
Yea by Cyrus had ditched his job at the warehouse
(08:06):
to focus on music. Ernest do that he was, he
wrote down his goals. 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. I will be known as the
next Elvis Presley. My gorgeous, perfect mullet will make the
(08:30):
history books and change fashion forever. Okay I added that
last bit, but I'm not wrong. It was a slow
climb for Sly Dog. They worked the bar circuit. Cyrus
tried to make it out in Los Angeles, living out
of his Chevy Burretta. As he told USA Today in
two thousand seventeen, quote, I was always just one failure
away from resigning to the fact that maybe I need
(08:51):
to go get a real job. I would have gone
back to Flatwoods. Finally, after nearly ten years of being
told no, Cyrus landed a record here with Mercury Nashville Records. Well,
he toiled away on new music. He and Sly Dog
continued to perform for local fans at their steady gig
at the Ragtime Lounge in Huntington, West Virginia. But if
(09:13):
his career was about to explode, he'd wind up needing
another aspiring songwriter to light the fuse. Don von Truss
was a Tennessee based military veteran whose day job was
hanging wallpaper. He played with some bands at high school,
but his plans of pursuing music were halted when he
was sent to serve in the Vietnam War. When he returned,
(09:33):
he continued dabbling in it in his free time. One
day in he was fooling around with the guitar and
drum machine and his sister's basement. Two simple chords later,
and he had the bones of a tune that would
eventually become a key breaky heart. He explained to Rolling
Stone in two thousand seventeen that a vision came to
him while writing it. Quote, I saw kids dancing in
(09:56):
my mind, and I remember telling my wife that, and
she thought I was a little grewey. Undeterred by his
judge wife, von Trust presented the ditty to a friend
who worked in music publishing. He told him he had
to finish it and not to get a co songwriter.
Sensing immediately that I had a future on the charts,
so von Trast completed the song and teamed up with
(10:19):
his friend to whip up a demo. As he recalled
in a two thousand nineteen interview with the newspaper of
the Tennessee and quote, everybody was jumping up and down
about the song. Really, something in us told us it
had great potential. Von Trast started shopping it around, knowing
darn well the competition in Nashville was fierce and there
were no guarantees. Meanwhile, Billy Ray. Cyrus and his team
(10:46):
had chosen nine songs for his debut album, Some Gave All,
the title track of which was a tribute to folks
who had served in the military. Yeah, you can see
where this is going. His producers and the head of
A and R wanted one more track. One day well,
Cyrus was on a break while rehearsing with his band
in Huntington's. His producer Joe Scape told him he had
(11:06):
a song he wanted to play him and Cyrus's guitarist
Terry Shelton's apartment. Scape sat down at the kitchen table
and popped a tape into Shelton's boom box, announcing, you
might think I'm crazy, but I think this thing is
a hit. He pressed play. Cyrus barely made it through
the first verse before leaping from his chair and shouting,
that's me, that's me. Love it. He knew instantly it
(11:29):
was special. He learned that the track called Don't Tell
My Heart was written by Don von Trust, Vietnam vet
who hung wallpaper for a living but love to write songs.
The demo was catching. The melody and the lines Don't
Tell My Heart by Achy breaking Heart got stuck in
your head, and it definitely seemed like something the crowds
at his shows would want to dance to. Not everyone
(11:57):
has such a warm response to the song. The gospel
and country quartet The Oak Ridge Boys had considered it,
but their front man Duane Ace Allen didn't like the
lyrics Achy Breaky Heart, so the band never recorded it.
Seems thirty years later, they're still kicking themselves for it,
but they wanted known that it wasn't all their fault.
In two thousand twenty, a post from their official Twitter
(12:18):
handle read true that Duyne Allen was not crazy over
the lyrics Achy Breaky, but it was r C Records
at the time that turned down the song. A still
had it in his pile of songs to be considered,
but those guys would kill for a time machine. Another group,
the Northern California trio The Mercy Brothers, also had an
issue with those lyrics. They recorded the song for their
(12:41):
self titled second album, but changed the words to don't
tell my heart my aching breaking heart. Sorry, don but
actually no, not sorry, don you lucky bastard, because Billy
did dig those lyrics, As he writes in his two
thousand thirteen memoir hill Billy Hart. Once I got ahold
of it, I never let that song out of my grasp.
(13:02):
I loved him. Indeed, he would grab Don't Tell My
Heart like the back of someone's moet and hold on
for dear life, dragging it all the way back to
the bar where he and his band would play it
that very night after he discovered it, and then he'd
ultimately dragged it all the way to the bank where
he'd cash up big fat check for a big fat hit.
(13:30):
But Cyrus's life was pretty nutty at this point. It
was bad enough he was living among heaps of cassettes
and microphones and various other crap in his Chevy burretta
will recording songs for some gave all worse after he
finished recording them. He lost his long time gig at
the Rag Time after he and his band stopped performing.
He left the bar one night because a fight he
had broken out there, Like I'm talking like guns, knives,
(13:51):
people getting tossed over tables kind of fight. So now
Cyrus was hustling again, taking gigs in North Carolina, Georgia,
Myrtle Beach, Virginia, Kentucky. Dude needed to catch a break
in a conference room full of Mercury executives in December nine,
Cyrus weighed in on a slew of decisions for his
forthcoming debut album, except for release in just a few months,
(14:13):
but he had a very strong opinion about what the
first single office should be. Don't Tell My Heart was
basically catinet for fans at his shows. He played it
and they had it straight to the dance floor, but
the title needed a tweak. Cyrus said, the name of
that song is wrong. Everybody calls it the achy breaky song.
They yell at out all night, play that achy breaky song.
(14:34):
He suggested they rename it achy Breaky Heart. The label agreed.
When Cyrus met Von Trust, they bonded straight away. As
Cyrus recalled to the Village Voice in two quote, he
thanked me for writing some gave all, and I thanked
him for his service. I asked him if he ever
wondered if the name of the song is achy breaky Heart,
and he said, call it what you want to call it,
(14:55):
just put it out. We let her loose. Von Truss
even joined Cyrus's b and and toured with him for
a decade. Cyrus has called on Trust his quote unquote
musical soulmate, and they wanted to collaborate for thirty years.
One safety, Breaky Heart was set as the lead single.
Mercury's promotions team developed a strategy to get the song
(15:16):
major exposure. They couldn't deny Cyrus's beefcake status. He had
a cherubic face and intense, piercing eyes that seemed to
stare into your soul. But he was also hairy, chested
and virile. He wore baggy sleeveless shirts, allowing his nipples
to play peekaboo with his audiences. Women lusted after him,
and no doubt some men did too. He also had moves.
(15:39):
The label knew what needed to play up all that
charisma and the tracks music video, so it decided to
spotlight Cyrus performing a key Breaky Heart live as Sandy niece.
Mercury's then director of public relations told the Tennessee and
we were going to turn on women all over the
country and put a demand on country radio to play
(15:59):
that song. They shot the video in January at the
Paramount Art Center in Ashland, Kentucky, filling it with a
swarm of fans that included Cyrus's sister, his future wife
Tish and his newly ex wife, Cindy. As he notes
in his memoir, it may be the only music video
ever made with both the singer's ex wife and future
(16:21):
wife in it. This guy at Cojones positioned in the
front row of the audience some heavily permed, hot and
bothered ladies who, when not oddly, and the singer were
engaging in some serious synchronized boot scooting. It's actually quite impressive,
almost as impressive as a number of rhyan stones and
cans of hairspray holding their looks together. You see, Mercury
(16:46):
had enlisted country singer Lee Greenwood's ex wife Melanie Greenwood,
to choreograph a line dance to accompany the song. There was, however,
a collaborative effort. When Cyrus and his team met with Greenwood,
he was impressed by her line dancing skills, but thought
that the dance needed something distinctive to make a stand out.
Greenwood asked him what he did when he's saying a
key breaky heart for audiences. He swiveled his hips slightly.
(17:09):
She incorporated that saucy little move into her coreo. In
addition to the music video, Cyrus's label produced an eleven
minute line Dance tutorial video, which is sent to bars
and clubs across the US. It also sponsored a national
dance contest. The line Dance caught fire before the singer's
(17:30):
debut album even hit shelves, and by the end of March,
a Key Breaky Heart and landed on billboards Hot Country
Singles Chart before the single had even officially been released.
In Robert k Orman was working as a music reporter
(17:52):
for the Tennessee and and covering Music Row National's Musical
Epicenter for USA Today. He was the first reporter in
Nashville to do a story on Billy Ray Cyrus. He
spent days with the singer, riding horses and motorbikes with
him for TV specially directed. Orman attributes the Ikey Breaky
pandemonium to changes in both Nashville and in pop music.
(18:13):
You see, by the time Ikey Breaky Heart blew up,
Nashville had already begun to evolve. Neo traditionalist acts like
Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, and the Judds had reinvigorated country music,
and we're attracting a younger demographic. As with pop music,
the genres visual component had become as important as the
artist's sound. Nashville was starting to shed its silly Hehaw
(18:35):
image for something hipper. Meanwhile, pop had undergone its own changes.
Says Ormond. There was a void in pop music at
the time that pop had forgotten that people like to dance.
Then along came billy, bridging the gap between country and pop,
and so here came this phenomenon out of country music,
initially out of Texas of people blind dancing to songs,
(19:00):
and Akey Breaky was designed and perfectly placed to become
one of the leading songs of that sub genre, that
that line dance genre. And Billie was beautiful, he was gorgeous,
and uh, it was just a perfect confluence of the song,
the singer, and the trend of country line dancing. They
all sort of came together in that moment. Cyrus was
(19:23):
a bit of a wild card, and the video for
Achy Breaky Heart. He doesn't look like other male country
singers of the era. First off, instead of a stets
and hat on top of his head, he has a thick,
dark nest of hair and a ship ton more cascading
down his shoulders. Instead of cowboy boots, he sports white sneakers.
His shirt is unbuttoned and oversized. His jeans are skin tight.
(19:46):
He dances around the stage using confidence and sexuality, like
he's about to do his strip tease at any moment.
Rumors later swirled that he was a former Chippendale dancer.
Both buff and pretty. He blurs gender lines. He knows
he's a fox. Billy. Ray Cyrus was a country disruptor
and a pop disruptor. He had the full UH package
(20:10):
in April two, just a month after it had descended
upon Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. A Key Breaky Heart
took its sad shattered little blood pumping organ to the
number one spot and stayed there for five weeks. Meanwhile,
by May of that year, the single was a pop
crossover hit, reaching number four on the Billboard Hot One.
(20:32):
It became the first country single to go platinum since
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's three hit Islands in the Stream.
Von Trust recalled to the Tennessee and that manufacturers literally
couldn't keep up with the demand for the single. He
said they even stopped selling it worried it would quote
cannibalize from the album. After that album, some gave All
(20:54):
was released in May. It's sword to number one on
Billboard's Country and Hop Album charts, eventually going platinum nine
times over and selling twenty million copies worldwide, and wait
for It ended up becoming the biggest selling debut album
by a male artist ever. At the thirty five Grammy Awards,
(21:17):
A Key Breaky Heart was nominated for Record of the
Year and Best Male Country Vocal Performance, and Cyrus was
nominated for Best New Artists. So we went home empty handed.
A Key Breaky Heart was named Single of the Year
by Country Music Association Awards. The song became truly inescapable.
(21:37):
It was an international smash that was essentially played on
the radio on loop to the point that it started
driving people insane. Up next, we explored the backlash to
Billy Ray's Party in the Back. M Billy Ray. Cyrus's
(22:15):
Achy Breaky Heart was suddenly everywhere, not only blowing up
in the US, but also hitting number one in Australia, Canada,
and New Zealand and number three in the UK. But
because of the singles omnipresence and the way it's once
catchy lyrics and melody metastasized into something thoroughly grading it
(22:35):
harvested a bountiful crop of haters. In a two thousand
seventeen interview with Banner graphic Don von Trust admitted quote,
there was a little backlash after a while. I heard
stories about people threatening some radio stations that were playing
it repeatedly. And you know, Cyrus's whole vibe was pretty polarizing.
In fact, he pretty much became one of the most
(22:57):
polarizing someone say, detested figures of music that year, says
country music historian Robert Orman. He was country, there was
no question about it. But he was also breaking the
mold a little bit um by by his visual presentation. Uh,
the long hair, the cut off of clothes, the just
(23:19):
everything was a little just a little bit different and
a little bit backwoods and a little bit off. He
was not like other other people at the time. He
was used his own thing. Cyrus faced the same criticism
that Katie Lang had faced. She was another country singer
who dared to dance with abandon and La Goofy. Like her,
(23:40):
Cyrus shook up the genre, challenged gender stereotypes, and emphasized
country's pop potential. In doing so, he too elicited some
double takes. Shane of Golden persch Bocker as a professor
of music studies at Temple University and the author of
Queer Country, a book releases year that examines queer and
trans performers in country in americonomy It. Her research focuses
(24:02):
on how history and identity, gender raise ethnicity, class, sexuality,
shape music, and vice versa. She reiterates Robert Ormond's opinion
the billy's unconventional style and approach to country threw off
some country purists. When we talk about men, we you know,
complement them on their brilliance and um their minds, you know,
(24:22):
and we don't draw attention to their bodies in the
way that we draw attention to women's bodies. And I
noticed that song draws a lot of attention and its
lyrics to body parts, not just the achy breaking heart,
but all different body parts and the way that they're
responding to his feelings and his rejection, his romantic rejection.
And so yeah, I think that sort of questions the
(24:45):
masculinity of the song in a way. The song is
a little weird. Cyrus's heart, or rather the narrator's heart,
is referred to as he don't tell my heart my
achy breaky Heart. I just don't think he'd understand. So
it's a totally separate entity from the singers had him brains,
and Cyrus is not only drawing all his attention to
(25:06):
his body parts and in a way objectifying himself further,
he's also delighting in rhymes and lyrics that for many
readers hokey, insincere, and like a parody of country, like
we saw with Katie Lang. Embracing the honky tonk humor.
The hillbilly humor of country music in the late eighties
(25:28):
and the early nineties was dangerous to the country industry
because they were putting forth a much more serious image
of country music, and ever since the Nashville Sound marketed
country music to a much wider audience, people on the coasts,
(25:49):
middle class people. They were trying to attract people to
hearing these stories and relating to them and not encouraging
some of that hillbilly humor that could bring shame to
working class and rural people, and it certainly did with
with things like the book and movie Deliverance, you know,
making people feel embarrassed to be from Appalachia and from
(26:12):
rural communities and be working class people and So for
Billy ray Cyris to come, you know, immediately out of
the gate with a crossover hit perhaps already made people suspicious.
And then um, he's dancing, and he's you know, sexy
and has a mullet and is singing all about his
(26:34):
different body parts and his heartbreak. Um, maybe that's enough
in that moment to make it a question for some people.
Singer Travis Tripp was one of those people. He questions
IRUs is seriousness, authenticity and stage presence, and was in
no hurry to release the Wiggle. In June, the popular
(26:54):
country Artists made his feelings abundantly clear to the press,
saying ikey Breaky Heart was quote unquote frivolous and that
a success suggested that country music was deteriorating into a
quote unquote as spiggling contest says Robert Orman. Country stars
male and female, generally do not move. They pretty much
stand there and present the song Billy did. Billy danced
(27:17):
on stage, Um, and that was unusual for the time,
And I think that is why men didn't flock to
him the way women did. I think men are uncomfortable
with men that are too good looking, and if they
dance on stage, that's kind of like, that's not manly
or that's not you know that in country music, that
(27:39):
was not done. Cyrus writes in his memoir hill Billy
Hart that he considered responding to trits dis but his
politician father talked him out of it, saying, son, you
have to take it as a compliment that you made
someone so upset. You can't have so many people out
there love that thing without having someone hated. You. Don't
say nothing. You just go about your busines us okay,
(28:01):
But Cyrus didn't totally take his dad's advice. At the
American Music Awards, where he won Favorite New Country Artist
and a key Breaky Heart won Favorite Country Single, the
singer took the opportunity to read his adversary as he
hit the stage and accepted the statue for Favorite Country Single.
He shouted, Tonight, this award is from you, the fans,
(28:23):
and as far as I'm concerned, to those people who
don't like aky Breaky Heart, here's a quarter call someone
who cares. Cyrus's remark refer to Travis Tritt hit Here's
a quarter called someone who cares. A single that, unlike
Cyrus song never made its number one that's right. That evening,
the City Library was open, and Billy Ray cyrus through
(28:44):
Travis Tritt's inferior number two single at Him the Shade.
But the iron mockery didn't stop there. Reacting to the
song's ubiquity, weird Al Yankovic penned a spoof a Key
Breaky Song, in which he beg DJ's not to play
the single, rattling off a list of divisive musical artists
(29:05):
he'd rather hear Aba Barry Manilow, Vanilla Ice, Nucas on
the Block, Tiffany Yoko Ono. He even went so far
as they say he preferred they quote unquote time met
a chair and kick me down the stairs. The hatred
The song got quite a bit of play on country
radio stations, but Yankovic admitted that it was a little
(29:25):
rude and gentleman that he is. Included a message in
the liner notes of Al Palooza, the album on which
Akey Bricky Song appears. He wrote all songwriting proceeds from
Akey Breaky Song will be donated to the United Cerebral
Palsy Association. Responding to a question from a fan about
a Yankovic explained both the writer of aky, Bracky Heart
(29:45):
and I were a little uncomfortable over the fact that
the parody was a little bit well means spirited, so
we thought it would kind of take the edge off
of it if we donated all the songwriting proceeds to
a worthy charity see such a gentleman, as if we
needed another reason to love weird. Tabloids also found an
easy target in Cyrus, with one reporting about his alleged
(30:07):
Chippindal's past. Come on it sort of tracks, however, in
April nineteen, when they reported that a young waitress had
given birth to his child while a different woman his
current main squeeze at the time, Trish, was pregnant. Well
that was a fact, Massy. Let you know who else
found an easy target in Mr Cyrus Elephant and the
(30:29):
Goddamn Chipmunks, who covered a key breaking Heart in the
fall of on their country album Chipmunks and Low Places.
But you know Cyrus went ahead and joined it on
the fun, contributing some speaking parts to the song, which
reached number seventy one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs
chart and became the trio's first entry on any Billboard chart.
(30:49):
Thirty two years go, Chipmunks so maybe everyone won in
this case. More than a decade later, the Hecklers were
still beyond the bio. On the two thousand four special
v H one and Blender Magazine present fifty Most Awesomely
(31:11):
Bad Songs ever, Aky Barky Heart came in at number two,
just behind Starships We Built the City, a song that
pretty much everyone agrees sucks ass. But Cyrus also had
some heroes on a side. For example, Bruce Springsteen covered
ay Breaking Heart live, declaring I don't care what anybody says,
It's a damn good little rock song. And when Cyrus
(31:32):
got a letter in the mail from Johnny Cash, his
Achy Breaky Heart nearly gave out altogether. In the letter,
Cash wrote, thirty six years ago, I was working with
Elvis and saw him take the same kind of flak
you're taking now. Congratulations on the way you're handling it.
All in your case as an Elvis's the good outweighs
the bad. Let him have it. I'm in your corner.
(31:55):
Laugh all you want, haters, but have you ever got
a letter from Johnny Cash? But here's the thing. As
much as folks thought Billy Ray, Cyrus was just some
lucky himbo. He actually was quite self aware, as he
writes in his memoir Hilboly Heart, Trust Me, I knew
a Aikey breaking heart. It was either love it or
hate it. There was no middle ground, not with a
(32:18):
song that big. It turns out Cyrus wasn't a clueless
beefcake dude was a savvy businessman. He knew what audience
has wanted, how to market himself, and ultimately how to
adapt and shapeshift to sustain his celebrity. He parlayed the
massive success of Some Gave All into an acting career,
even landing a bit part in David Lynch's moody film
(32:38):
moholland Drive. Okay, admittedly he was playing a himbo pool
boy in that one, but he also showed up in
the series doc The Nannie and Diagnosed his murder, and
a Toronto stage production of Annie Get Your Gun. Oh,
and remember how the Gossip Rags reported that Cyrus had
knocked up two women within the same year. Well, following
(32:59):
all that famine fortune, his wife Trish gave birth to
their first child, her name Destiny Hope Cyrus, or as
we know her today, Miley Cyrus and two thousand and
six Billy Ray and Miley unveiled their Disney show Hannah
Montana to the world. The series, about a teenage girl
named Miley who's leading a double life as a pop
(33:21):
star Hannah Montana while navigating adolescence, ran for four seasons.
On it, Billy Ray played her dad, Robbie Ray. Yeah,
they didn't really try to vail things here, Billy Ray.
Cyrus was aware of his outsider status and Nashville and
in pop, knowing he could just fade away and fall
into some one hit wonder Ubliette. The key to longevity,
(33:41):
as it always has been, was reinvention. Achy Breaky Heart
has been recorded in languages like Welsh, Japanese, and Spanish.
The Mexican Quintet Cabayo Dorado turned the song into a
wedding classic in Mexico in the mid nineties. In two
thousand seventeen, to sell breat Sinco de Mayo and the
twenty anniversary of Thanky Bricky Heart, Cyrus teamed up with
(34:04):
them to re record their versions Masks, which Cyrus and
Von Trust produced. Cyrus continued to release country tunes sixteen
studio albums total. However, no one would be as huge
as Some Gave All, which was the best selling album,
spending seventeen consecutive weeks at the top of the Billboard
(34:27):
two hundred at that point, the longest time spent by
a debut artist at number one. He never had another
solo pop hit after Aki Berkey Heart, But did he
really need to? The man gave us Hannah Montana. If
you're still not convinced that Mr Mullet had the last laugh,
(34:48):
I have three words for you, Old Town Road. We
all know how the story goes by now, clever social
media star and musical upstar records a country trap song.
It starts a sending the Hot Country Songs chart until
Billboard disqualifies it, claiming it doesn't count his country social
media star, who had already tweeted that he wanted Billy
(35:09):
Ray on his song since he loved him from his
Hannah Montana days, gets him too, not only voices support
of the song, but re recorded with the Upstart as
a duet. The man who in two turned country on
its stuffy old dance hating head re emerged in two
thousand nineteen to part the Tumbleweeds, kick up the dirt
(35:30):
and show everyone that there was a new shareff in
town Well, a sheriff and a deputy. In this case,
he saw potential in this young whipper snapper and saw
a bit of himself and him too. He had also
been deemed unworthy by certain country muckey MUCKs. I've been
watching everything going on with O t R. When I
(35:52):
got thrown out the charts, Well and Jennings said to me,
take this as a compliment. Means you're doing something great,
Cyrus tweeted to him. Only outlaws are outlawed. Welcome to
the club. The rest is chart history. Soon came The
Old Town Road Remix, a duet between twenty year old
(36:13):
rapper singer Little Nasax and Billy Ray Cyrus of their
record breaking nineteen weeks It's spent at number one in
the Billboard Hot one hundred. Eighteen of them were credited
to both Nasax and Cyrus. The song became Cyrus's first
number one single on the Hot one hundred and also
one in his first Grammy Awards, one for Best Pop
(36:37):
Duo Group Performance and another for Best Music Video. In
joining forces, these outlaws created something universally beloved, something that
transcended genre and appealed to so so many listeners, says
Shane of Golden persch Bocker. That remixed version immediately, you know,
(36:59):
authentic the song for some country listeners, but also um
as Little no Sex says, it attracted people who had
had thought that they would be turned off by country music.
Like Aky Bricky Heart, Old Town Road was absurd and ubiquitous,
but this time was Internet, and like Aky Bricky Heart,
it had country traditionalists up in arms. Who was this
(37:22):
kid who came out of nowhere with no experience or
dues paid in Nashville to take country, hip hop and
pop by the balls. But also, like Cyrus, Little Nozex
proved to detractors he wasn't going anywhere, well except to
Hell to give Satana lap dance. The parallels between these
two singers stories are uncanny. Both were college shopouts who
(37:46):
became overnight sensations after putting out a massive hit single
and serving a head turning look that totally disrupted country music.
A collaboration seemed too perfect, like a foregone conclusion. You know,
when Little nos Sex came around with this invitation to
collaborate and remix the song, it was the next great opportunity,
(38:10):
you know, to be reintroduced to another another audience. Um
to be playful in the same kind of way around
country music, you know, to not to not have such
strict boundaries and kind of solemness around it, but to
have a little fun with it and also do something
that's clearly country music. Right. They're they're black cowboys, going
(38:33):
back to the very beginning, so it's it's authentic in
that way. Up next week, splore what is arguably the
most notorious element of the cyrusmithils his mullet. As we
(38:56):
go behind the Hair, behind the Man, we're left wondering
was Billy Ray Cyrus actually onto something. We've spent this
(39:20):
episode talking about Billy Ray Cyrus, but you can't talk
about the man without talking about the mullet. Like Sampson
or any respectable drag queen, Cyrus was only as good
as his wig. Preparing to revisit Ikey Breaky Heart all
these years later, I couldn't tell you half the lyrics
to the song. I certainly couldn't remember any of the coreo.
(39:42):
But the mullet is permanently seared into my brain, into
all of our brains. It's a tell as old as time.
If Cyrus took an old Town Road straight to come back.
Bliss in two thousand nineteen his legendary token, We've soon followed.
The mullet a ka the Mississippi mud Flap a k a.
(40:03):
The Tennessee top Hat a k a. The beaver Paddle
a k eight. The Kentucky Waterfall has been enjoying a
renaissance the past few years. Call it the Tiger King effect.
Or maybe it was all those months spent in lockdown
when salons and barber shops were closed and we had
no choice but to let everything go to ship or
(40:23):
and a lovely twist none of us could have expected.
Maybe it was Billy Ray's own daughter, Miley Cyrus, who
sparked the modern mullet movement, not without the help of
Rihanna and Zendia. Though whatever the reason, whoever is to
blame or thank, the mullet is once again making the rounds.
It's popped up in runway shows for Alexander McQueen Blanciaga, Kenzo,
(40:45):
Rick Owens, and Sella McCartney, And on the Red carpet
Who could forget when none other than Little nos X
rocked up with the two thousand twenty one MTV Music
Awards boasting a Jerry Curl mullet and eleven or halfpence
suit half gowned by a Telly Versacchi. Meanwhile, the USA
Mullet Championships launched in including Men's, Kids, teens, and fee
(41:06):
mullet divisions. Magda rich Co is the founder of Harari,
a gender neutral, all inclusive barbershop with locations in Brooklyn,
New York City, and Los Angeles. She's been giving modern
mullets for fifteen years, but she says these days the
account for thirty tot of her business. She considers the
mullet to be more than just a zoom friendly hairstyle
(41:28):
for folks working from home. You know, the old saying
business in front, party in the back. So I feel
like Amala is a liberal of like a rebellion, and
when a person gets Amla, they're just kind of like,
you know, showing people that they're not going to have
a hair in the back, you know, to the collar.
They're more of a rebel or you know, just somebody
(41:49):
who wants to have a good time and have a fun,
trendy haircut. Rich Co discovered Billy Ray Cyrus in middle
school through a girlfriend who was really into country. She
thought a key breaky heart was catchy and liked his look. Yeah,
I mean I thought it was cool. I was definitely
inspiration for like gay guys. Cyrus often comes up in
clients looking for mullet cuts head a priori. But if
(42:10):
he's the most name checked celebrity of her male clients,
they figured out ways to personalize their mullets. Does that
just wat People are just like go and deconstruct, you know,
whatever was to make it more original and like more
current for the times. The number of modern mullet variations
is staggering. There's a Kentucky waterfall, the baseball mullet, the
(42:34):
ziggy stardust mullet, which of course David Bowie made famous,
the mohawk mullet combo, the Pompador mullet, the shag mullet,
the mullet with countless different fades, and the wolf cut,
which Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus have launted recently. In
my neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn, I've seen pretty much every
(42:54):
last one of them. Turns out, Billy Ray Cyrus was
onto something as rich co test. The mullet is actually
incredibly versatile. It's possibilities are endless. It's you know, also
a lot of times like gender affirming or you know,
it's also gender neutral. So I think that's really cool
about it to anybody can have it. Furthermore, taking the
(43:16):
plunge into that Kentucky waterfall is a fast way to
show the world that you have zero fox left to give,
that you own the road, that you own your identity.
People are just I don't know, they get so much
life from it. When you know they have like a
regular hair, got really long hair, and then they come
in and they get a mullet makeover. Oh my god,
(43:37):
it's like a whole new persona comes up. You know,
the confidence and like the swag love mur hadum. Cyrus
had that swag, which is why he was able to
make millions of listeners swoon and get plenty of them
to strap on their boots and get in on the
latest dance craze. We can't deny the role his hairplate
in solidifying that swag. Cyrus may have ditched that mullet
(43:59):
years ago, but it's legacy lives on. When I asked
about his post Old Town Road future in a two
thousand nineteen New York Post interview, Cyrus replied, you want
me to be really honest with you. I was thinking
about retiring because to me, this is the perfect way
for me to go out for years and years, I said,
Man if I could ever just make it back to
(44:20):
the top, I think I just retire and quit at
the top. Never dreamy it could ever even be close
to possible. Lo and behold, this ride happens. And there's
been so many great ideas coming at me. That's why
I'm not going to retire, because I now have a
whole another album of some ideas with some people I
love to make some music with, and it turns me on.
(44:40):
The unfathomable crossover success of a debut novelty song kick
started Cyrus's career. The record chattering success of another twenty
seven years later reignited it. In September two, one Lele
nas X's debut single, Old Town Road, which morphed into
a collaboration with Cyrus Us, became certified fifteen times platinum
(45:03):
by the Reporting Industry Association of America, moving fifteen million units,
the first record ever to do so. Mr Mullet could
no longer be called the one hit wonder. Meanwhile, country
is hardly a dirty word in the pop world. Sure,
Little nas Ex quickly transitioned into hip hop and pop,
but country acts like Casey Musgraves, Marion Morris, and Orville
(45:24):
Peck not to mention, this artist you might have heard
of named Taylor Swift have substantial and dedicated followings and
critical acclaim to boot go ahead, don't tell your heart
that Cyrus helped instigate the country pop cross over three
decades ago. But you might be lying to it. Maybe,
just maybe we've been underestimating Billy Ray Cyrus all along,
(45:45):
says country music historian Robert Ormond. He did wonderful things
for the business. You know. He brought a lot of
ears to the to the business, and a lot of
young people to the business. And he's never really been
given the credit. I don't think that he should get
for for what he did. And yes it was it
was a novelty, and yes Old Town Road was a novelty.
(46:08):
But look, Little mass X went on to create to
surprise everyone by creating just as big as hits Um
in the in the hip hop genre. Like his signature hairstyle,
Cyrus proved to be surprisingly enduring. He knew he couldn't
be part of the mainstream country sound, and so he
(46:28):
developed a career as an actor, I know, and did
other things outside the genre and leading outside music to
to keep him on the on the radar. So yeah,
he did show him. Juliet lamb our Texas line danswer
would agree. Sure, she's biased. She thinks Cyrus is incredibly handsome,
and she's phoned all the way to Taiwan to teach
(46:50):
students her achy breaking heart dance routine. But she also
finds Cyrus's great and resilience inspiring. Well, I think you know,
by reading his biography, he taught me a good lesson.
He strikes me as a very persistent man. There's always
(47:10):
a voice inside his head told him he would be
a musician. He listened, so he clearly defined exactly what
he wanted to happen, and that's the way he reached
his dream. That's the story. Now, if you don't mind,
(47:41):
I'm going to go get my mouet touched up. Where
Were You in ninety two was the production of I
Heart Radio. The exactly of producers are Noel Brown and
(48:01):
Jordan run Talk. The show was researched, written and hosted
by me Jason Laffier, with editing and sound design by
Michael Alder June. If you like what you heard, please
subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts for
my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Host
Jason Lamphier
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