Hillbilly Heart (23 page)

“Hang in there, man,” he said. “Play your music. Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

Good advice.

Between tour dates, I poured myself into finishing my second album,
It Won’t Be the Last.
Studio days were precious, and Seger’s advice stayed in my head. Producers Jim Cotton and Joe Scaife and the guys in Sly Dog often stayed with me in the Music Mill for days at a time, through marathon sessions. We knew there was pressure, that people were going to judge this second album, but we tried to keep that out of mind. Every day when we came into the studio, we high-fived each other and said, “Keep the music first.”

That was our slogan: Keep the music first. I loved the album we made, especially when you consider that the days I wasn’t in the studio, my ass was strapped to a rocket, going around the world at the speed of sound and also trying to get to know my new baby girl. I thought the album reflected my diverse interests, especially songs such as “Throwing Stones,” which I’d written after “Some Gave All,” and the title track, “It Won’t Be the Last.” The highlight was bringing in the Jordanaires, the vocal quartet that had backed Elvis Presley, to sing harmonies on the song “When I’m Gone.” I felt shivers when I looked up and saw Ray Walker and the others and felt their history.

My dad was a devout fan of the Jordanaires and drove in from Frankfort just to watch the session. At one point, I glanced at him in the control room and saw him gasp in amazement. Success brought a lot of privileges and opportunities like this, and the best part was being able to share it with my dad.

In June, my album was released. I refused to let the label put my picture on the cover, insisting they use a silhouette of my profile instead. The record company wanted to see my face. “I’m tired of my face,” I told ’em. We had a pretty heated argument, but I wanted the attention to be about my music, not my looks or my hair or anything else, and in the end, though they weren’t happy, I prevailed.

It Won’t Be the Last
debuted at No. 1 on the country charts and No. 2 on the
Billboard
100. Once again, the critics weren’t impressed, but the fans were; by the fall, it had gone platinum and
produced four hit singles: “In the Heart of a Woman,” “Somebody New,” “Words by Heart,” and “Talk Some.”

Jack put me on the road for the rest of the year, starting with the annual CMA Fan Fair where I invited Bryan Adams to join me onstage for a few songs. It didn’t help me fit into Nashville’s idea of a country music star, but what the hell. I had been a big fan of his for a long time, and it turned out he liked me. Before the show, I received a note inviting me to jam. I thought it sounded too good to be true, but I decided to call the bluff. Only it wasn’t bluff. I looked up and here he came. I didn’t give a shit if some people had a problem with that, which they did. I wanted to be known for playing all styles of music, not just one kind of music.

Let me just say, Bryan came out and we rocked ’em hard. We did a rock-stomp version of “Achy Breaky Heart” and Sly Dog kicked straight into “They Call Me the Breeze.”

Bryan had one of my favorite producers in the world with him—and also one of the best—Mutt Lange. He’d produced some bands, including AC/DC, Def Leppard, and Foreigner. Before the show, we were hanging out in my tour bus and Mutt was staring out the front window, toward the audience. He spotted a beautiful, dark-haired young woman. She stood out in the sea of people. “Who’s that girl out there?” he asked. “I gotta meet her. I’m gonna marry that woman.”

“That’s Shania Twain,” I said. “Harold Shedd just signed her. She’s really talented.”

Moments later, Mutt was off the bus and on his way. Not long after that, Shania and Mutt got married.

Meanwhile, my tour bus crisscrossed the county. In this world before BlackBerrys and cell phones, I was in the bubble, isolated from everything but music. It was a gratifying, lonely, strange world of songs, shows, fans, and the double yellow line of highway. One night, somewhere out west, my bus pulled into the back of an arena. It was about 1 a.m. and I walked inside to look around and get the vibe of the place.

The backstage area was crowded with roadies loading gear into semis. My rigs were backing in as the rigs belonging to whichever band had played there that night were backing out. Suddenly, a figure emerged from the shadows. I heard him say my name. At first, I couldn’t see him. Then I recognized Kurt Cobain from Nirvana.

“Hey, man,” he said. “Congratulations. You pissed off the whole world.”

We shook hands.

“Thanks, man,” I said. “I guess I did. I really appreciate you saying that.” And we both laughed a little.

We chatted briefly and realized we both had daughters around the same time. His little one, Frances Bean, was a few months older than Miley. I also told him that my drummer, Greg Fletcher, was his biggest fan.

“He’d freak out if he knew you were here,” I said.

“Then don’t fuckin’ tell him,” Kurt muttered.

We looked at each other. There was an awkward silence as we realized what he had just said and how he had said it. Then we both laughed.

I shared two laughs and one F-bomb with Kurt Cobain that night. I’ll always cherish that moment.

Laughter’s a good thing. This one time I bought an old John Deere tractor just because I wanted an old John Deere tractor. I liked the way it looked. I had a ton of fun climbing up on that beautiful piece of machinery. I had no idea what I was doing, but I loved to take it places that had never been mowed. Plowing over virgin ground reminded me of the good old days. Tish would listen to me brag about my tractor-driving skills and laugh at me as I’d get in predicaments, as I was always driving it into places where I got stuck. “One day you’re going to turn that over and cut your arms off,” she warned. She thought I was weird. Can you imagine?

One afternoon, I was on my way to
Crook & Chase,
the long-running talk show hosted by Lorianne Crook and Charlie Chase. I drove myself in my front-wheel-drive Cadillac. As I started down
the driveway, I decided to check on my horse, Roam. Suddenly I was driving that Caddy on my four-wheel paths, and I got too close to the pond near where I kept the horse.

Next thing I knew, the front half of my car had slipped into the water. I barely made the show. Tish didn’t stop laughing at me until I got home that night. We had fun just living and loving each other. The simple days were the best. Here’s a typical example: While on a walk through the woods one day, we started to monkey around, one thing led to another, and we got all fired up and made love, or something like it.

A month or so later, we found out that Tish was pregnant with our son, Braison. He wasn’t planned, but I welcomed the news. I liked the idea of being a daddy again. I was planning my schedule, as was always the case back then, adding tour dates and TV shows. I remember looking across the room and seeing Tish playing with Miley. I loved her and wanted to be with her forever.

What did forever mean? Well, I had to make a decision. Either I married her soon or I would go on tour, make another album, and she would get frustrated, rightly so, give up on me, and move back to Kentucky. The truth was, she had given me an ultimatum. I had till the end of the year to marry her. Or else.

I knew what day it was and how much time I had. It was now December 28, three days after Christmas, and I had to make a choice. On the one hand, Tish and Mammy had already planned the wedding. They had booked the preacher from Mammy’s Methodist church. And Tish had bought fake glasses and a mustache from a costume shop for me to wear into the courthouse so we could get the license before the media found out and the circus hit. We would recite the vows in our family room—our house was an A-frame with a two-story cathedral ceiling, so, in a way, it was like a church. Tish had the whole thing worked out.

On the other hand, right after the first of the year, I was supposed to start a new leg of my world tour, including a performance
for the Queen of England. It was going to be big. I’d heard Princess Diana was even supposed to be there. That excited me. I thought she was so beautiful and graceful, and I half-jokingly told my manager that they wouldn’t have to pay me if I could meet her.

But something about being gone for such a long time didn’t feel right. I have to tell you the God’s honest truth. Instead of wanting to go on tour, I could feel myself being drawn in another direction, and I knew why. I had a chance to have the one thing I had always wanted, the one thing I’d never had: a home where the mom and dad live together with their children in happiness and love.

Now I had toys, homes, cars, trucks, horses, and land. I even traveled by Lear jet. I had everything that money could buy. But money couldn’t buy family. Not a happy, loving family. And here it was, right in front of me. Why was I hesitating?

I’ll tell you why. Because it meant I had to get married.

So, here’s what happened. That morning of the twenty-eighth, with the clock ticking and Tish waiting, I went to the place where I did all my serious thinking, the highest peak on my thirty-two acres. There, I crawled into my Apache Nest, a little shelter I’d built out of roots and sticks and mud. I lit a fire and I tried to imagine what the future looked like, how it would roll out if I went on tour, what I might say to Princess Diana if I got to meet her, and how it might feel to stand next to Tish and say, “I do…” And of course the look in the kids’ eyes as they realized Daddy was here to stay.

It didn’t take long before I said to myself, “You know what? I’m going to trade the Queen for the King, and the King is Almighty God… and I’m going to marry Tish. I’m going to be a good husband and a good daddy. I’m going to do what my family needs.”

I walked back to the house, and when I went inside, Tish was in the kitchen with Brandi, Trace, Miley, and Loretta. They all had the same look on their face—annoyed. They couldn’t wait for me to come down off that hill. I walked straight to Tish and stood in front of her.

“You still wanna get married?” I asked.

“Are you serious?” she said.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Just recently Tish reminded me that after the big wedding, the two of us went out to dinner. “Do you remember where we went?” she asked.

“I’m sure I thought you deserved the best,” I said.

“You sure did.” She laughed. “We went to Burger King. Do you remember what we got?”

“Of course. We both got the chicken sandwich.”

CHAPTER 21

Storm in the Heartland

F
OUR MONTHS LATER I
was in a room at the Regal Riverfront Hotel in St. Louis when I turned on the news and heard that Kurt Cobain was dead. The news devastated me. We had crossed paths several times since our first meeting, and each time we exchanged greetings. Under different circumstances, we might’ve been friends. I could also close my eyes and see myself three years earlier listening to
Nevermind
in my Chevy Beretta as I was getting a divorce, losing my home and my cat.

I knew the circus had overwhelmed him. I feared it could get like that for me, too, if I didn’t cool my jets. As a result, the following month, after Tish gave birth to our son, Braison, whose name was inspired by all the brazen chances I’d taken, I finished my tour and hunkered down at home. I needed to step away and focus on family and the things that mattered.

My dad used to say nothing is as good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse, and he was right. I woke up, saddled Roam, and rode for five miles. I saw deer, quail, rabbits, and a flock of wild turkeys. A double shot of Mother Nature was what I needed, and I made those rides part of my daily routine.

One day I took Miley for a ride on my four-wheeler. She was around two years old and game for anything. “Let’s go for a spinner,”
I said, using her term for ride. Her eyes lit up as I strapped her into a baby-toter on my back and zoomed across the large, flat fields and up the hill into the woods. Every time I stopped to check on her, she was all smiles, Smiley Miley. She loved to go fast.

On the way back, I sped over a spot where some trees had fallen during a recent storm. In that instant, I had to make a quick decision: duck or stop. I ducked and made it. But I forgot I had a baby on my back. I heard a
thwack
—and stopped.