Billy Ray Cyrus

To understand the music of Billy Ray Cyrus now, you have to understand his music then.

His boyhood home rang out with Gospel, country and bluegrass. Then, along came Z.Z. Top, Ted Nugent, Foghat, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Molly Hatchet and every other bad-ass band to pass through eastern Kentucky in the 70s, and that was that. A rock ‘n’ roll hellion was born. No matter how many country or Gospel chart-toppers he had, he never lost his passion for rock. With the self titled album “Brother Clyde”, the Fontana Records debut CD from his new band, Cyrus finally lets it rip.

"I always loved rock ‘n’ roll," Cyrus says. "That was a heavy part of what I was as a young juvenile delinquent. I tried from my first album to rock like any other Southern rock band." Fate – and country music immortality – intervened, but for “Brother Clyde”, he followed an oh-so-rock-and-roll dictum: No rules. No limits. No preconceptions.