Biography of Billy Ray Cyrus

Enamored of baseball, Billy Ray Cyrus intended to become another Johnny Bench as he grew up in Flatlands, KY. While attending Georgetown College on a baseball scholarship, he bought a guitar, and decided immediately that athletics wasn't the proper direction for his life. Instead, he formed a band called Sly Dog with his brother and gave himself a ten-month deadline for finding a place to play. One week prior to that cut-off date, the group went to work as the house band for a club in Ironton, OH, where they remained for two years. When a 1984 fire destroyed the bar -- and Cyrus's equipment -- he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career. Eventually, he decided to return to Kentucky and he commuted regularly from there to Nashville in search of a record deal. Grand Ole Opry star Del Reeves got Mercury Records to take a look, and division head Harold Shedd signed him in the summer of 1990. When his first album came out in mid-1992, Cyrus -- with his good looks, sculpted body and the infectious "Achy, Breaky Heart" -- became an instant groundbreaking sensation. "Achy, Breaky Heart" made his debut album, Some Gave All, a blockbuster success; it sold over six million albums by the end of 1993. Cyrus wasn't able to match the sales of his debut, but 1993's It Won't Be the Last sold over two million and his 1994 record, Storm in the Heartland, went platinum. Trail of Tears, Cyrus' fourth album, was released in the summer of 1996. ~ Tom Roland