Billy Ray Cyrus Rocks Hard But Keeps It Country

By Ted Drozdowski
"I made this album like it was my last," insisted Billy Ray Cyrus - even though Back to Tennessee is far from his elegy.
After all, Cyrus continues to be Country's high-profile presence in various media. The upcoming Hannah Montana: The Movie will mark his ninth film role. Between hosting NBC-TV's Nashville Star and appearing as his daughter Miley's dad and manager on Disney Channel's hit Emmy-nominated series Hannah Montana, he is one of the most recognizable men on television. His concerts are among the boldest on the big stage, blending pure Country with Southern rock 'n' roll.
Then there's his 11th album, set for release April 7. Back to Tennessee isn't the swan song of a retiring champion, content to make one more album and then withdraw to his 500-acre farm outside of Nashville, pushing a wheelbarrow full of awards and memorabilia before him.
Since he was introduced to the world as the then mullet-sporting singer of "Achy Breaky Heart," the 1992 CMA Single of the Year, the multi-Platinum-selling Cyrus hasn't just been busy - he's been growing as an artist. And Back to Tennessee is his masterpiece. With its carefully selected songs sculpted to a sonic iconography crafted by Cyrus and CMA Award-winning producer Mark Bright, it rings with the truth of biography and speaks of the American spirit. Family, home, faith, hope and the pure joy of living are among its recurring themes, all of which Cyrus explores more eloquently than ever thanks to his evolution as, in his own words, a "Pentecostal Southern soul singer."
"Frankly, working on the song 'He's Mine' made me a better singer and took me to a whole new level," Cyrus said, citing this story of youthful exuberance and family pride. "Casey Beathard, Tim James and Phil O'Donnell wrote that song, and Casey, who is a great, great singer, sang the demo. I loved his vocal performance so much I decided I was going to learn every nuance and emulate everything he did to bring out its emotions. I have never studied a demo vocal performance that hard, but following Casey put me on the path to opening up new aspects of my own voice that I used on all of Back to Tennessee."
Cyrus dove into the album with high ambitions.
"I wanted it to be real and emotional and to reflect aspects of my life and my family's life right at this moment," he said. "And I wanted it to sound big. Say what you will about the blending of Country and rock 'n' roll, but I love it. I wanted it, but without any compromises in the music. I wanted the Country songs to be stone Country and the rock songs to really rock."
Mission accomplished.
"When Billy and I first met to talk about working together, he already had a bunch of great songs," said Bright. "He was happy and aggressive about his music and running toward it full bore. He was a mega-Godzilla star, but he was feeling a new maturity as an artist and was ready to express that."
Back to Tennessee began when Cyrus wrote the title track, a tale of his hankering to return home, to step out of the Hollywood whirlwind that had enveloped him and Miley in "Hannah Montana" mania and breathe some fresh Southern air. But the roadmap for the recording sessions took shape when Bright, working with Doug Howard, Senior VP of A&R at Lyric Street Records, paired him with studio guitar virtuoso Kenny Greenberg to cut "Real Gone," a brawny celebration of cars, girls and the classic American lifestyle.
The song, penned and performed originally by Sheryl Crow for the Disney/Pixar animated movie Cars, was reincarnated in hot-rodded, Hemi-ized form. Greenberg even appears in the video and has joined Cyrus for shows on the road and at last year's CMA Music Festival in Nashville in June, where Cyrus' sweaty, guitar-powered set was a romping highlight of closing night at LP Field.
"When Billy heard Kenny play on 'Real Gone,' he absolutely fell in love with him," said Bright, who has been recently appointed President/CEO of the Christian music company Word Entertainment. "I knew it would happen. The pairing was perfect, because Billy Ray's got a big, powerful voice that sounds great supported by a bedrock of guitars. They're both very strong musicians. Whenever I need to have a really individualistic guitar imprint on an album, I get Kenny. And he really understood what Billy wanted to convey."
The six-string ace's contributions to Back to Tennessee range from the mountain of twanging and soaring guitars stacked behind Cyrus on "As Country as Can Be" to "Thrillbilly," on which the ringing banjo that introduces the tune is joined quickly by guitar roaring through stacks of Marshall amplifiers.
"We actually went for a sound we called 'bluegrass meets Led Zeppelin' when we recorded it," Cyrus said. "And I think we nailed it."
Greenberg agreed.
"When Mark and Billy Ray brought me in to work on Back to Tennessee," a CMA Musician of the Year nominee noted, "we got a great rapport happening right away because Billy Ray said to me, 'I like big guitars and AC/DC but I love Country Music.' Then I knew we were on the same page. Plus, Billy Ray is the most positive person I have ever been in a room with. Every time I picked up my guitar, I felt that Billy Ray was rooting for me. That gives you leeway to make mistakes, maybe fall down a little and get right back up to play something that really hits the right mark - or higher. There's freedom, and it's that way in the studio and when I join him onstage."
Classic rock served as a frequent reference point as arrangements for Back to Tennessee developed: The Spencer Davis Group for the R&B-infused "Love Is a Lesson," for instance, and The Beatles' George Harrison for the sweetly purring slide guitar of the title track. Fans of The Kinks and The Rolling Stones will hear something familiar in some of the album's other grooves too.
"For me, incorporating iconic sounds and licks helped to create a real vision of growing up as an American," Cyrus said. "Like the song 'As Country as Country Can Be' says, 'I grew up on [George] Jones and Tammy Wynette,' but I also grew up on rock 'n' roll. It was all part of forming my musical loves and dreams as a boy in the heart of Appalachia, in Flatwoods, Ky."
And yet that raising, that accent in his voice, that yearning for stardom and to taste the wider world tempers the daily experience of small-town life that keeps everything that Cyrus does Country - even when there's a hint of Pink Floyd woven into the textures of "He's Mine."
"I know it doesn't sound very humble, but I think I've become mature as an artist," Cyrus said. "I'm writing songs about what I'm living for or what I've lived. I'm singing stronger, with better melodies and more soulful phrasing than I ever have. What it amounts to is being myself. And the thing about me is, no matter what the music may sound like, anything I do is always going to be Country, because I'm Country to the core."

© 2009 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.