The Daily News-Journal from Murfreesboro, Tennessee • A6

6A DAILY NEWS In 1992, Billy Ray Cyrus had the tightest pants, the longest mullet and dance moves reminiscent of Elvis Presley. Then came the mercilessly catchy song that catapulted the struggling singer from Flatwoods, Kentucky, to international fame and etched a permanent mark on American pop culture. Twenty-five years later, the singer-turned-actor owes his decades- long career to the same song and video that can be credited with the popularization of line dancing hip-shaking anthem Breaky music capitalized on the fact the pop world was country music historian Bob Oermann said of the success. song is ridiculously catchy and at that time the rock and pop world had forgotten that people loved to dance. a dance song and country music stepped into a Country line dancing clubs popped up in small towns and the steps to the accompanying line dance were added to physical education curriculum in schools around the country.

Cyrus played himself in popular network sitcoms, and his rocketing popularity helped usher in the country music boom that dominated the SoundScan sales charts in the 1990s. Cyrus still learned the Achy Breaky, but on its 25th anniversary, he be more thankful for the simplistic two-chord ditty. The song, written by Don Von Tress, spent 10 weeks at No. 1 after its May 30, 1992, release. Cyrus will play Breaky and other hits at CMA Music free Cracker Barrel Country Roads Stage inside Ascend Amphitheater at 8:25 p.m.

Thursday. To Cyrus, Breaky was more than a quick ticket to stardom it was a lifesaver. wrote the song, but I would be dead without said Cyrus, seated beside Von Tress in a Nashville conference room half a block from the former Music Mill, where the men first met two decades ago. hate to say it, but in all likelihood, there was tragedy waiting on me not far When the song hit nationally, Cyrus, a native of Flatwoods, had already been plugging away at a music career for more than a decade. Nearing his 30th birthday and after 10 years of making periodic runs to Nashville to try for a record deal, he was losing faith.

was always just one failure away from resigning to the fact that I need to go get a real said Cyrus, who now stars in original series the would have gone back to Flatwoods. The steel mills are closed. The railroads are closed. Those were my One Monday, Cyrus made the drive to Nashville one last time. On Tuesday he met with producer Harold Shedd.

10 years of being told no, he stands up and says, going to structure you a little and walked out of the Cyrus recalled. came back in with a guy in a suit, shook my hand and said, to Mercury Cyrus heard Breaky for the first time on a boom box when producer Joe Scaife drove to one of regular gigs in West Virginia and played it for him. the chorus was over, I physically stood up and said, me, that is all my music that I was raised on feel-good Cyrus added it to his show that night. When he played it during his first set, people went His crowd begged for the song during every set that night, and Cyrus said later it was so infectious he was even singing it in his sleep. was everything I had waited he said.

every right turn, every wrong turn, everything in my life had led me to that The record label knew Cyrus and his Breaky going to be an easy sell at country radio. Sandy Neese, who served as director of public relations at Mercury Records when Cyrus was signed, said his mullet was too long and he was too shy. She get anyone in the press to talk to him. Everyone at the record label had seen Cyrus play live and knew how women reacted to him. They developed a marketing plan around his were going to turn on women all over the country and put a demand on country radio to play that she recalled.

During a meeting, Neese remembers a production staffer almost whispering, do a They hired a choreographer to develop the Achy Breaky line dance and scheduled a video shoot in Ashland, Kentucky, where Neese said they knew screaming women would show The choreographer went to Ashland ahead of the video shoot and taught the dance to 10 or 12 women who were then placed at the front of the crowd during the video shoot. When Cyrus performed, Neese said, the audience in the Paramount Theater nuts and it all turned out on Mercury Records sent the video to every country music club in the United States then instituted a dance contest to win a trip to Nashville and be featured on television. By the time the label released Breaky to radio, the song already had an audience strong enough to quickly propel the song to No. 1 on country airplay charts and keep it there for 10 weeks. was unheard Neese said.

was one of the most fun things ever been involved with. We put together a marketing plan that worked like a As the song permeated radio airwaves, Charlie Cook, then vice president of Country Cumulus Media, was resistant to add Breaky to his playlist. He worked in New York at the time and convinced it was a hit. After he relented, Cook remembers, the song was quickly accepted, though it became polarizing. played the song so many times that it was disliked by about half of the audience after the first he said.

the song is fun again and we can play it as a 25th anniversary Von Tress wrote Breaky while he was hanging wallpaper for a nursing home in East Tennessee. He still marvels at its success. think about such a simple, accessible song, about how many people that touched mostly in a positive way we had a little backlash but, goodness gracious, it made people happy globally still hard to process he said. Today Breaky has been recorded in languages ranging from Japanese to Welsh and a Spanish version of the song is among the most popular wedding songsin Mexico. thing in life that involves passion is there not an opposite and equal side to Cyrus said.

song is a uniter. Think about 25 years ago. There was so much division in our country and the world, whether it be the wars, the rumors of wars, the L.A. riots. Along comes a song written by this man that lays out a good time, a good little place to lay down your burdens and just party.

Sing, dance, whatever makes you feel good, and sometimes what music Reach Cindy Watts at 615-6642227, or on Twitter at Ahill-Billy anthem turns 25 CINDY WATTS USA TODAY NETWORK TENNESSEE How Breaky made its mark on pop culture LARRY MCCORMACK THE TENNESSEAN Songwriter Don Von Tress listens as Billy Ray Cyrus talks about the 25th anniversary of "Achy Breaky Heart" on May 3 in Nashville. If you go What: CMA Music Festival includes 11 stages, seven of which are free Where: Downtown Nashville, including Lower Broadway area, Music City Center and Nissan Stadium When: June 8-11 Tickets: The free stages are: Chevrolet Riverfront Stage (at Riverfront Park); Chevrolet Park Stage (Walk of Fame Park); Budweiser Forever Country Park Stage (behind Ascend Amphitheater); Gildan Broadway Stage (parking lot at Hard Rock Cafe); Music City Stage (in visitors area in Bridgestone Arena); Cracker Barrel Country Roads Stage (Ascend Amphitheater); and HGTV Lodge (in front of Schermerhorn Symphony Center). Paid stages: Radio Disney Country Stage, CMA Close Up Stage and Durango Music Spot are part of Fan Fair inside Music City Center. Admission to Fan Fair is $10 a day or $25 for afour-day pass. Tickets to nightly concerts at Nissan Stadium start at $203.85.

All tickets are available through Ticketmaster, www.ticketmaster.com or by calling 1-800-745-3000. Tune in Season 2 of the premieres 9 p.m. July 11 on CMT. Amob of thousands witnessed and participated in the lynching of Ephraim Grizzard on Woodland Street Bridge in the middle of the afternoon more than 125 years ago. After seizing him on April 30, 1892, from the Nashville jail where Grizzard was being held for the alleged assault of two girls the crowd beat him, stabbed him and hung him before shooting him more than 50 times.

His story was one of three remembered Wednesday at the Hope Through worship service at the Fisk University Memorial Chapel. Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee Task Force on Anti-Racism hosted the service in conjunction with the Christian Conference at Lipscomb University. The task force organized the service not only to remember stories like but also to seek redemption for such atrocities that plague Tennessee history. church has a role in healing the hurt that remains and that contributes to all of the strife we still have in the task force co-chair Natasha Deane said. the church have something to say about this, with the message of forgiveness and love and redemption, then the church is irrelevant.

But we believe that it is relevant, and it is the way forward, so we believe that we have to speak out in this After the service, the congregation moved from the Fisk chapel to St. Episcopal Church to bless a memorial marker honoring Grizzard, his brother Henry Grizzardand Samuel Smith. All three of these African-American men were lynched in or nearNashville, as Deane discovered with the help of the Equal Justice Initiative. The Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu, originally from South Africa but a Nashville resident of 18 years, gave the homily, calling on the church to take ownership of its historyand repent for its sins.

we bring before you the Grizzard brothers and Samuel Smith, and we say truly their blood is on our hands, and we come to you asking Tutu said. us remember that in claiming their stories, we are claiming our own humanity, and saying Lord, we desire a new The worship service came after nearly three of effort within the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee to address racism. In 2015, St. Episcopal Church sponsored a resolution at the annual convention calling on church members to pray for the lives of those affected by racism, and instructing those ordained to create opportunities for discussion about racism. And about a year ago, the bishop of the Middle Tennessee diocese, the Rt.

Rev. John Bauerschmidt, appointed 12 church members of different Episcopal churches around Nashville to the task force, Deane said. Since then, the group has organized events to discuss racism, such as special services honoring civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. and abolitionist Absalom Jones. Nashville native Darlene Lawson, 67, attended the service at the Fisk chapel, though she regularly attends church at First Baptist South Inglewood.

For Lawson, who said she participated in some of sit-ins in the 1960s, called the service emotional. message resonates today as much as it did back in the for Lawson said. St. Senior Warden Johniene Thomas said the service felt celebratory. was a celebration to see all of our efforts go where we were Thomas said.

are falling. We feel moved to continue, and we will KATHERINE SCHEU THE TENNESSEAN The Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu, originally from South Africa but a Nashville resident of 18 years, speaks during a service at Fisk Memorial Chapel. The service honored three African-American men who were lynched in Nashville in 1892 and 1924. Episcopal Church remembers 1892 lynchings in city KATHERINE SCHEU THE TENNESSEAN PAGE LABEL news.