Hillbilly Heart (28 page)

The extreme circumstances inspired us to push the episode back two months and turn it into a two-hour tribute to firefighters, police, and the military. Our writers expanded on the original script, and we sent a crew to New York and interviewed one particular firehouse that had been hit extremely hard. The show became a
documentary wrapped into a dramatic episode about the courageous people who put their lives on the line… heroes. I knew it was the most important thing we were ever going to do during the show’s run.

I flew to New York to help with the interviews, and while I was there, some officials invited me to participate in the seventy-fifth Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade that November. They asked me to ride on a float honoring fallen New York City firefighters. I immediately said yes. The float was lined with boots and jackets belonging to fallen heroes from the firehouse where we’d done our interviews. There was a banner on the float that simply read “Some Gave All.” It couldn’t have been more true.

To this day, I have never had a more surreal, or even spiritual, experience than I did that Thanksgiving as I rode through New York City. I could still smell the smoke smoldering with the ashes. Those heroes were not physically present, but they were very much there. You could feel ’em. Like a song you never forget; I couldn’t help but feel those men and women lingering over Fifth Avenue, over the entire city, inspiring us, reminding us of the price of freedom and the cost of courage, as heroes do.

CHAPTER 25

“Amazing Grace”

C
ARL P. MAYFIELD WAS
the biggest name on morning radio in Nashville. His show was on WKDF, and over the years, he’d become a good friend. Carl knew that many people had written me off before they even knew me.

One of those people was Waylon Jennings. Even though nearly ten years had passed since Waylon’s dig at the Country Music Awards, I still remembered his putdown. I’ll be totally honest: all the platinum and gold records hanging on my wall at home didn’t erase the sting of a legend half-jokingly telling Nashville that maybe my tennis shoes were a little too tight.

Well, Carl knew Waylon and I had never met, and he started talking about this canker sore of controversy on the air. He brought it up every day. It became his thing on the radio. It got people in town talking. What if Carl P. gets the two of them to meet? Wouldn’t that be something? Would Billy Ray get red on Waylon? If he tried, would the old outlaw shoot him?

It got pretty crazy even though I knew Carl P. had my best interests in mind. He did repeatedly say, “If Waylon would just meet my friend Billy Ray, he would totally change his mind. He just doesn’t know him.”

Carl P. called me in Toronto and asked when I was going to be back in Nashville. I had a break in a couple of weeks and a trip planned to see my family.

“Would you be willing to go live on the air with Waylon?” he asked. “It’ll be you, me, and Waylon in the studio, live. Whatever happens, happens.”

“Of course I would,” I said.

When I returned to Nashville, my first appointment was at WKDF. Waylon was already in front of a mic when I walked in. The tension in the studio reminded me of the feeling before a high school football game. He watched me carefully, like a gunfighter in a bar in an old Western. He spoke first.

“Hi, Billy Ray Cyrus,” he said. “I’m Waylon Jennings.”

I looked at Carl P., whose face was flushed with the excitement of the moment. He got right into it, too.

“OK, Waylon, what did you mean about Billy Ray’s tennis shoes being too tight?” he asked.

“I was just making an observation, you know,” Waylon said.

“Well, I’ve got to thank you for that,” I said, jumping in. “I don’t know if you recall, but when you said that, I reached down and loosened ’em up, and I swear, I’ve felt better and more free ever since.”

All of us laughed a little bit. As we continued to chitchat, Carl P. added calls from listeners, and then something unexpected happened. Carl P. took a call from a lady who said that she was with her gravely ill grandmother. Even though they were getting ready to unplug her from life support, she was coherent. She and the rest of the family had one request before they said good-bye. They wanted to hear me sing “Amazing Grace.”

Talk about drama. We weren’t talking about two country singers mending some manufactured bad blood for a pal with a radio show. This was real life. Waylon looked at me with an expression of, “What are you going to do now, hoss?”

For a moment, there was just silence. I had my guitar in my lap,
so I began to strum. Then I just did what comes naturally to me. I started to sing.

Amazing grace… how sweet the sound…

Then Waylon began to sing.

That saved a wretch like me…

And then Carl P. started to sing. By the time we finished, there wasn’t a dry eye in the studio or, I assume, among listeners. After we ended, Carl P. cut to a commercial, and Waylon reached over and shook my hand.

“Man, I’ve done a lot of things,” he said. “I started my career in radio. But I’ve never had a moment like that.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“You want to come over to my place for a cup of coffee when we get done here?” he asked.

“I’d love to,” I said, and with that, the show went on…

After playing a few more songs, I found myself following Waylon back to his house. Inside, he pointed out Buddy Holly’s motorcycle and told me this and that as he showed me around. He bragged a little about his then-teenaged son, Shooter. As a matter of fact, I’ve never seen a daddy so proud. He cranked up one of Shooter’s new tunes. It was hard rockin’ and drivin’, just like his old man. His wife, Jessi Colter, came into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, and joined us as he played me some new music he’d recorded.

“We’ve got to write a song together,” Waylon said. “Do you know David Lee Murphy?”

“I sure do,” I said.

David Lee Murphy was a great singer-songwriter. Still is.

“I love him,” I said.

“How ’bout me and you and David Lee write a song?” he said.

The following week, I went back to Waylon’s house and the three of us wrote a song. I spent the next day there, too. It was the start of a deep friendship. It turned out, Waylon was a fan of
Doc.
He knew a lot about the episodes and what Dr. Clint Cassidy was up to. When I went back to Toronto, he called me after each new episode
aired and gave me his thoughts and told me he liked the letters I read at the end of every episode. I came to realize that this guy everyone thought was an outlaw and a tough, callous old man… Well, I don’t want to ruin his image, and so I won’t. But he did have a heart of gold.

One night Waylon and Jessi drove over to my house, and we were sitting around the kitchen table when Miley came in with her little guitar. She asked Waylon if he’d show her the chords to his classic “Good Hearted Woman.”

I was amazed at Miley’s curiosity and fearlessness. She’d once asked Ed King to show her the chord progression of “Sweet Home Alabama” and she sang “Blue Suede Shoes” with Carl Perkins. My God. Now it was Waylon and Jesse singing “Good Hearted Woman.”

Waylon couldn’t have been happier to show her. He took her guitar and played the song right there, as Miley watched, her face as close to the guitar as she could get. She was like a sponge.

When I went on tour in the summer after
Doc
’s first season, Waylon and Jessi came to my show at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix. They’d moved out there; his health had declined pretty rapidly. I could see him starting to fade. But there he was, having come out to see me and my band at that theater in the round.

We’d played “Geronimo,” which was as hard and as loud of a rock song as anything I’d written or performed. It was about the earth and taking care of Mother Nature. I loved it. And so did Waylon, who said, “Gosh, I loved that song, man. When is it coming out?”

I laughed and said, “It came out like ten years ago. Nobody ever heard about it. It was on my
Storm in the Heartland
album.”

“I never heard of that one,” he said.

“Neither did anyone else,” I said, with a shrug.

“That’s OK, man,” he said. “The song was fantastic. I loved the whole show. I love it that you play what you feel.”

I savored those words the way I did something else he’d said. It was back when we first started to hang out. One night we were sitting around the kitchen table, talking about whether being accepted really mattered if you were true to the music inside you.

Waylon listened to me complain about being ignored and slighted and locked out of Nashville’s mainstream. He’d heard my rap before. Putting down his coffee, he said, “Cyrus, do you know what the definition of an outlaw is?”

“No, what is it?” I asked. I wanted to know from the man himself.

“One who has been outlawed,” he said.

“Makes sense,” I said.

He stuck out his hand. We shook.

“Welcome to the club, brother. Welcome to the club.”

As he said that, I knew it was a moment I’d savor forever. He couldn’t have given me a greater gift. Or compliment. And I took it as such.

Waylon died on February 13, 2002. A month later, country music’s biggest stars gathered in Nashville for a tribute to this man whose life and music had touched all of us, and beyond. I had an idea for something that I thought might be the ultimate compliment to Waylon. Before the tribute, I sent a note to Travis Tritt, asking if he’d want to join me onstage for “Amazing Grace.” I thought Waylon might like that. Once again, I don’t want to ruin his reputation; still, it’s kind of funny to think of Waylon Jennings as the great healer. But ain’t that what music’s all about?

CHAPTER 26

“I Want My Mullet Back”

B
OTH MILEY AND NOAH
appeared on a number of episodes of
Doc,
which made me happy. The more they did, the more the family was together in Toronto.

Noah became a regular. Her name was Gracie; she was Dr. Derek’s little girl. Miley was Kiley; ironically, this would be the original name for her character in
Hannah Montana.
If anyone was destined to be in front of the camera, it was Miley. If she saw a light or a lens, she ran toward it. A live audience was even better.

As a tiny little girl, if she was at one of my shows, I had to make sure she was locked in my dressing room with the nanny. Otherwise, if she made it out to the sound board, sooner or later she would find a way to get on the stage.

We have a classic picture of Miley when she was two years old. She’s no bigger than a popcorn fart, and all done up in a pretty little dress. It was 1994, and we were in Memphis, taping an hourlong tribute to Elvis for a TV special. Miley was backstage with A.J. But somehow she broke out at the end of the show and found her way onstage as Tony Bennett, Eddie Rabbitt, the Jordanaires, the Sweet Inspirations, and I started the encore number, “Amazing Grace.”

I couldn’t see her from where I was, but I sensed a commotion and saw someone in the wings put his hand to his face in horror
and say something about a little girl on the loose. I knew it was Miley, and I was right. One of the Sweet Inspirations caught her and they took turns passing her from one to another. Then one of the Jordanaires scooped her up. She sang into the microphone of whoever held her. But she kept breaking loose. By the end of the last chorus, Miley was in Tony Bennett’s arms.

“You’ve got a special little girl here,” he said as he handed her over to me at the end of the song.

People kept saying that about her. And we saw it, too. I knew she could sing from about the time she began making sounds. She also came downstairs with her little guitar whenever any of my friends were over and asked them to teach her how to play their songs. She was hungry to learn.

I can still picture as if it were yesterday, that time Miley asked Waylon Jennings to show her how to play “Good Hearted Woman,” though I crack up because of what happened with Noah. See, we were all in the kitchen: me, Tish, Braison in the corner, Miley, and Noah, who was being cradled by Waylon’s wife, Jessi. Then, as Miley practiced the chords, Waylon asked to hold the baby.