Billy Ray Cyrus Finds Roots With Acclaimed ‘Trail Of Tears’
Billy Ray Cyrus says that prior to the release of his critically acclaimed album, “Trail of Tears,” the album that revealed “the most of who Billy Ray Cyrus was” was his first, “Some Gave All.”
Then, Cyrus indicates, things began to stray from the right track.
“It’s no one’s fault, no one’s to blame,” he says, “but I look at the way things evolved from there into the second album and the third album, and it was just … number one, the weight of the entire world (when his ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ was selling multimillions of copies internationally and its popularity was running him ragged); number two, time limits to get that next album out there; number three, there were so many inputs coming from all direction as to who I should be and what I should be and my image and so on.”
Cyrus says the new album, on whose sound the bluegrass mandolin plays a very prominent role, is “very roots-oriented” - by which he means that it is very close to his personal musical history. He notes that his earliest memories are of sitting around his grandfather’s house listening to him “play the fiddle by ear, and my mom, play the piano by ear.”
His early musical influences include the music of Merle Haggard, whose “Sing Me Back Home” Cyrus does his own rendition of, as well as Tom T. Hall’s “Harper Valley PTA,” a ‘60s smash for Jeannie C. Riley. Cyrus says “Sing Me Back Home” was one of his favorite songs as a youth.
Riders cover Gene Autry
Gene Autry, whose reputation as a multimillionaire and owner of the California Angels baseball team often obscures the fact that he was America’s first popular singing cowboy, gets a boost for the musical side of his reputation with Riders in the Sky’s new album, “Public Cowboy No. 1: The Music of Gene Autry.”
The collection, on Rounder Records, includes such Autry classics as “Mexicali Rose,” “You Are My Sunshine,” “Be Honest With Me,” “Blue Canadian Waltz,” “Sioux City Sue” and the signature tune, “Back in the Saddle Again.”
‘Best of Austin’ now a CD
Viewers of the series of “Best of Austin City Limits” shows on PBS-TV in late summer, as well as others who appreciate good live country music, should be interested in the album “The Best of Austin City Limits: Country Music’s Finest Hour” on Columbia Records’ Legacy label.