Hillbilly Heart (16 page)

When I found her in the crowd, her friend Johnny was smothering her head with a wet towel as Cindy whipped around and confronted the two women. Fortunately, a couple of bouncers intervened. Cindy wasn’t hurt, but we agreed it was safer if she didn’t come to the club anymore.

Folks in the tristate area were passionate about the band. We might as well have been REO Speedwagon. The setup couldn’t have been better. Jimmy Getty paid us well. Cindy and I lived in an apartment at the end of Long Street, in the area I’d tried to save from developers as a kid. I wrote about my life, which was good.

I still recorded my songs on a little Fostex recorder—just a guitar and vocals, plus a guitar track or two—and then I’d drive to Nashville, hoping to get someone interested. It was the same old same old, with no payoff. But I was a determined SOB and held tight to my belief that I was pursuing something greater than a whole industry of people saying no. They were merely making a decision. I was chasing destiny, even if I was the only one who believed it.

But I wasn’t the only one. My dad urged me to enter a battle of the bands contest he’d heard advertised in Winchester, Kentucky. For some reason, he badgered me until I thought, What the hell. He went along with me and watched as I played a couple of songs. Afterward, a man approached me, saying he wanted to invest money in me. I’d heard that a hundred times before. I pointed out my dad across the room and said, “Go tell him.”

In the meantime, I got a beer and watched them talk. But damn if that guy, Jim Green, and his wife weren’t telling the truth. They put up $10,000, and together with my dad and I, we started a company called Gold Line. The money we brought in was mine to do with whichever way I thought would get my career going.

The irony was, this relative largesse left me nearly paralyzed with fear. I ran every idea that came to mind by my dad. I tried
not to spend a penny because I thought I’d be dead in the water once I ran out of funds. Eventually, though, I went to Nashville and spent $7,000 recording two songs for a 45, “All Night Love” and “Remember,” a song I’d written about Lynne. Recording was a fantastic experience. But afterward, the producers sat me down in a coffee shop where we were celebrating a job well done and said they’d need another fifty grand if I wanted to get it on the charts.

“Top thirty,” one of them said.

“And for another fifty thousand,” his partner added, “we can probably get it in the top five, maybe the top three or four.”

I shook my head in amazement.

I think they thought they had a fish on the hook. But I was genuinely amazed that (a) they thought I had that kind of money; and (b) they thought I was that gullible.

“If we get another ten, maybe we could get it to number one,” the first guy said.

“Number one,” I said in a Jed Clampett–like, gee-whiz tone. “This almost sounds illegal. What kind of chart are you talking about?”

“
Cashbox
,” one of them said. Once again, I thought of that song I’d written, the one titled “Cashville.”

I pressed up that record, thinking that if I played enough gigs and hustled the 45 to local radio stations, it would take off—and, like Loretta Lynn in
Coal Miner’s Daughter,
so would I. But the band was unable to push to the next level. We were all drinking and partying way too hard. Way too many of our friends were doing the same thing. And we had way too many women coming at us from all angles.

We were like a train going way too fast around sharp curves. Something that was supposed to be pure—music—became the right hand of the devil. Unfortunately, my brother Kebo and I were at the center of the flame. Stuff was going on, onstage and off.

Finally, after one show where things got way too crazy, a couple of the guys cornered me and said they didn’t want to play with my brother any longer. It may have been a situation where they
couldn’t play with him. It didn’t matter. We were at a point of no return.

I heard what they said, but I stuck up for my brother. Blood was thicker than water. As a result, some of the guys left, some stayed, and we kept going. But pretty soon we were confronted with the same situation.

Soon I was out of options. I had played with nearly every musician in the tristate area. Now I had to face facts. I couldn’t defend Kebo anymore. Maybe it wasn’t about defending him, though. Maybe it was that I was trying to save him from himself, and no one could do that but him.

I wanted to save his family from the heartache and pain that he and I had witnessed as little boys. Forces of evil were crashing around him and me, around both of us, but the fact is, he was married to Missy and had a little girl, and there were more than a few occasions when things got ugly. Finally, it was obvious, he and I needed to talk. And we did. Our conversation was painful and awkward; I said it seemed apparent that he needed a break, and so did I. It was time for us to go our separate ways.

Saying that to my brother was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. We’d been partners since childhood. Kebo and I went through a few years of estrangement before we could repair our relationship. But it wasn’t just us. The whole band was busting up. The wheels were coming off the bus for all of us, not just me and Kebo. It was for all the usual reasons: too much sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Indeed, in September 1987, about a month after Kebo and I had our talk, the entire band threw in the towel. I was stunned. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. Then things settled down and began to make sense. I was going to have to stretch outside my comfort zone. It was time for me to move on to plan B or C or D… or L, M, N, O, P. Whatever plan was next in line. I didn’t know, or couldn’t remember.

CHAPTER 14

“King of the Ragtime Lounge”

I
WAS BACKSTAGE IN
a club in a Beckley, West Virginia, hotel, asking myself what the hell I was doing playing a Top 40 club in a Beckley, West Virginia, hotel. It was nearly winter 1987, and I had joined the Players, a band led by Harold Cole, a talented, hard-working bass player I’d known casually for a few years. He and another guy from the band, guitarist Terry Shelton, had come to my house from Charleston and asked me to join their group.

Next thing I knew, I was in Beckley. And then Richmond. And then Myrtle Beach. And then other towns in Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, and Georgia—my second exit from the tristate area. I thought it was a graceful way for me to bow out before any more feelings got hurt. But the setup was what had me scratching my head backstage in clubs. The Players had an agent out of Roanoke who booked them into little dance clubs in small southern hotels. They played disco / Top 40 songs and had a singer, Robbie Ernst, who did the first half of every show. Then I came out for a second half, which consisted of country and rock and roll. I kicked into Skynyrd, Bob Seger, Johnny Cash, and my originals—which the crowds hated. They’d come to dance! Not just dance: they’d come to
disco
dance.

I struggled for a while before loosening up and not worrying so much about whether they liked me or wanted to rock. I came out and did the only thing I could do, which was be myself. Once I did that, I learned I could teach any room to party. I also learned how to perform. No, I learned how to
entertain
—and crowds reacted.

The show changed. Robbie and I traded off on lead arrangements. When I backed him up, I focused on harmonies, something I’d always loved. The best part was that Harold took care of the business side. For the first time in my musical career, I wasn’t saddled with the responsibilities of contracts or handing out paychecks on Saturday nights.

These guys were good. In addition to Harold, Robbie, and Terry, the lineup included Doug Fraley on drums and David Baxley on keyboards. The Players were very polished and professional. They worked hard. Their repertoire forced me to adapt to new musical styles and stretch, say, on more intricate rock songs with keyboards and synths, like Def Leppard’s “Animal” and Whitesnake’s “Is This Love.”

The best part was, I hit it off musically with these guys. Although our tastes differed, we shared a mutual appreciation of one another’s abilities. Terry’s guitar playing knocked me out. He could play rock, country steel, or pop and sound exactly like the licks on records; even better, he added perfect licks on my originals. I knew to keep someone that good by my side—and I did. We’re still friends, and that says something.

The schedule Harold booked could be exhausting. It never stopped, and that took a toll. After one long stretch on the road, we were supposed to have a week off and then double back through Georgia. But when everyone bitched about the long drive, Harold, in an uncharacteristic move, canceled the shows.

A few days later, he presented a better offer anyway. He’d spoken with Bud Waugh, the owner of the Ragtime Lounge in Huntington, West Virginia. Bud offered a monthlong gig at $1,325 a week. It sounded perfect. The club was a fifteen-minute drive from the little
house Cindy and I had bought in Ironton. But there was one condition: “Cyrus, he wants
you
to sing… a lot,” Harold said. “If you’ll sing most of the songs, he’ll agree to the house gig.”

I said, “Hell, yes”—and our month-long gig turned into the next three and a half years.

April 13, 1988, was our first night at the Ragtime, and it was memorable for how
not
memorable it was. The crowd for our first forty-minute set was enthusiastic but small, and it got only smaller as the night progressed. By the last set, we might as well have been playing for friends and family.

But three days later, we got a break: Richard Marx came to town needing an opening act after his bowed out at the last minute. We eagerly trucked our gear over to the Huntington Civic Center and played our asses off the next night. The next day, the newspaper singled us out as a local band that delivered a smoking half hour of kick-ass country and rock—good, party-time, get-down music.

And guess what? The next night, a Saturday, the Ragtime Lounge was packed. The cozy honky-tonk didn’t hold many people to begin with, a dozen or so more than two fifty, but we played and people partied with an energy that made it feel like ten times that number.

In June, Robbie left the band, and Harold rechristened it Billy Ray and the Players. Three months later, we opened for REO Speedwagon. Imagine doing that at eight o’clock and then two hours later being back onstage at the Ragtime. The good times there just got louder and wilder. I couldn’t be on that stage without someone calling out for my originals, like “Mom Called Dad a Mother,” a funny bar song I wrote, or “Whiskey, Wine, and Beer.” I also played a rocking cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.”

Other popular songs were “Milkman’s Eyes,” “All Night Love,” “I Think About You Day and Night,” and “Remember.” I had about thirty-two originals at that time, and I tried to play six to eight every set. A bunch of them were genuine hits with the crowd. I looked the part of a bad boy. I wore wristbands, necklaces, T-shirts
with the neck and sleeves ripped out, a bandana tied just below my knee, and buckskin boots. All of us sported mullets except for Terry Shelton, who’d be the first to tell you his was a skullet. Our philosophy was simple: if you ain’t coming to party, you might want to stay home.

My marriage was similar. I think both Cindy and I would agree that our relationship at this point was more of a party than a traditional partnership. Playing that bar night after night was a different kind of lifestyle. There were girls who liked to hang out, and Cindy gave me the OK as long as I didn’t get too crazy with it.

Once that happened, though, the sanctity of our circle, if you will, was broken. As a result, we’d have to deal with the hurt feelings and consequences of those entanglements. But it was pretty good fodder for a songwriter—and I wrote a ton.

Nearly every day on the stretch of US 52 between Cindy’s and my place on South Sixth Street and the Ragtime, I dreamed up songs, singing lyrics into a microcassette recorder I kept in the glove box. At home, I would finish them off on my crude four-track, which I referred to as my laboratory of music. Then, on Mondays and Tuesdays, my days off, I tried to pedal them in Nashville.

It was a six-hour drive there, and I would walk up and down Music Row, holding my satchel of songs and photos in one hand and my guitar in the other. I’d knock on the door of Tom T. Hall Publishing, Conway Twitty’s Twitty Bird Productions, and other similar businesses. I canvassed Chet Atkins Boulevard. I ignored the signs that said
NO SOLICITORS
. If I got inside, I talked fast.

Each week, I felt the sting of rejection, but giving up was never an option. I had burned all bridges that led anywhere other than becoming a successful singer-songwriter.

Then a door opened. In November 1988, Kari Reeves, the daughter of singer-songwriter Del Reeves, welcomed me into the publishing office she managed for her father. They had a considerable
business. In a refreshing change from the usual chorus of thanks-but-no-thanks, she wanted to hear my music—and she was also gorgeous.