Big country sound, small-town vibe

Tracy Byrd is the word on country music and bass fishing

“I can’t imagine my life without country music. I walk and talk it. My life would be empty without country music. I need it like I need food and water. I need it for survival.” – Tracy Byrd

While this may come as a shock to some of his most ardent followers, country music star Tracy Byrd almost opted for an entirely different profession altogether. Impossible, you say? Hardly. Despite the fact that his first three albums have already sold over 3 million copies and that he is worshipped by throngs of country music fans all over the world, Byrd came very close to cheating his listeners out of enjoying one of the true, pure talents of his profession.

A no-lose situation

At the tender age of 16, Byrd – like most teenagers – wrestled with the question of what he wanted to be when he grew up. However, unlike most teenagers his age, the source of Byrd’s adolescent angst was particularly narrow in scope. In short, at the heart of the issue for Byrd was a defining choice between the two loves of his life: country music and professional bass fishing.

“I remember sitting there thinking, `Do I want to sing for a living or do I want to fish for a living,” said Byrd, who was raised in Vidor, Texas – a small, closely knit community no more than a country holler away from Beaumont, Texas. “Growing up, I fished nearly all the time and sang the rest of the time. I was fishing when I was 4 years old, and it’s something I’ve loved to do all of my life. But ultimately, I decided that I loved to sing more than I loved to fish.”

Another fortuitous outcome for Byrd lovers was the Texas native’s inability to master – of all things – the trumpet.

“I played the trumpet in junior high school,” said Byrd. “But I was a really bad trumpet player. That’s why I switched to guitar.”

Oh, what might have been …

Blood lines, song lyrics run deep

Not surprisingly, family played a pivotal role in both the eventual outcome of his career and his deeply devoted passion for fishing. However, at least one of his role models came from a rather unlikely source.

“My grandmother is the one who taught me how to fish and hunt,” said Byrd, who took up hunting at the ripe old age of 6. “She used to do it out of necessity because she grew up in the Depression and had to feed her family. She is just awesome. I’ll tell you, she’s a squirrel’s worst nightmare.”

Other family members, perhaps unwittingly, provided all the fuel that was needed to lay the foundation of his successful music career.

“I think the biggest influences on my country music career came from my mom, who sang in church, and from my grandfather,” he said. “I remember my grandfather was always singing around the house to all of us kids. Basically, my exposure to country music was immediate because my parents were just huge, huge country music fans.”

Just how big of country music fans were they?

“My parents took me to the Grand Ole Opry when I was 6 months old,” Byrd recalled with some fondness. “And my parents used to play country music all the time in our house. I distinctly remember as a kid waking up in the morning listening to Don Williams – he was known as the Gentle Giant – and a bunch of other classics. From the time I was young until high school – that’s where I heard Led Zeppelin and that kind of stuff for the first time – country music was the only thing I ever knew. In fact, I told my parents that the only thing that I wanted from them when they pass on is their album collection. It’s unbelievable.”

Ignorance is bliss

“Thinking you want to be a country music star and being one are two totally different things,” said Byrd, somewhat prophetically. “That’s what most people don’t realize.”

In fact, Byrd didn’t even realize it himself. Ironically, it was Byrd’s inability to grasp precisely how difficult a career in country music could be which allowed him to become a country music star in the first place. Who said ignorance doesn’t breed success?

“Country music is very hard to break into,” he said. “Basically, if I hadn’t been ignorant of the whole profession, I’m not sure I would have even tried. Getting where I am today was mostly due to dumb luck and determination – not willing to take `no’ for an answer.”

However, that didn’t mean that stardom would come quickly or easily. At the age of 20, Byrd made the difficult decision to drop out of college in a bid to pursue music full time. While it was a gamble, it was a gamble he had no qualms making.

“I started up a band and we wound up playing a lot of acoustic songs at first,” said Byrd. “In the beginning, we must have played every beer joint from Lafayette, La., to Beaumont, Texas. It was kind of crazy.”

Not surprisingly, it wasn’t long before Byrd’s hard work started to pay off.

“We started generating a good local following,” Byrd said. “And then I met a local promoter, Joe Carter, who started helping me out. He asked me to open for some of the shows that he was promoting around town. It went pretty well, so we decided to get together and see if we could make something work.”

With his budding friendship with Carter, Byrd quickly realized that his musical aspirations wouldn’t amount to much unless he got quality airtime on as many country music stations as possible. So, at the prodding of Carter, Byrd packed his bags and headed to Nashville. Although that trip didn’t produce any record deals, Byrd was determined to keep trying.

“In a nutshell, I made three trips out there before anything really happened,” he said.

The big break

Finally, after some heavy lobbying, Byrd got the most important tryout of his career. Called a “showcase” in industry speak, Byrd was asked to put on a makeshift concert for a bunch of highly influential music executives from some of the top country labels in the business.

By all accounts, it went amazingly well.

“The next morning MCA calls,” said Byrd. “And I was really floored because I’d already been turned down by MCA records earlier. But they told me to come down and play for some of their top executives because they wanted to hear me play some more. So I did.”

After quickly putting together an impromptu MTV-esque “unplugged” concert in front of a few well-placed MCA heavyweights, Byrd returned home and patiently awaited the results.

“About two weeks later, I got a call from my agent and he told me that MCA was ready to do a deal. He said that Warner Brothers was also interested in getting something done,” Byrd said. “Basically, there was a bidding war going on.”

After some back-and-forth haggling, Byrd’s agent informed the budding superstar that both offers were relatively similar, and that it was up to him to make a final decision.

“I decided to go with MCA because that’s the label I grew up listening to,” he said. “At the time, they had all of the great country music singers and I wanted to be a part of it.”

Country harmony

In 1993, Byrd released his first album “Tracy Byrd.” A short time later, Byrd learned that his album had reached No. 1 on the charts as did the hit single “Holdin’ Heaven.”

From that point, there was virtually no stopping the country music juggernaut. In the following six years, Byrd released a string of top-selling country albums starting with “No Ordinary Man” – 1994; “Love Lessons” – 1995; “Big Love” – 1997; “I’m From the Country” – 1998; and “It’s About Time” – 1999. However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing either.

“I recorded over at MCA for eight years and there were some good times and some hard times,” he said. “Toward the end, though, I started having problems with MCA. Basically, they promised a bunch of things that they never delivered on. So, about 3 1/2 years ago I switched over to RCA. And that’s where I’m at now. And I’ve never been happier.”

By the time “Ten Rounds” was released in 2001, the first such album on his new RCA label, Byrd had rekindled his childlike enthusiasm for everything from country music to life in general.

“It’s about my newfound love of life and career – and taking advantage of every minute of every day,” said Byrd in his online biography, discussing the impetus behind “Ten Rounds.” “It’s about having fun, loving your loved ones and paying attention to the true meaning of life.”

Future, fishing and family

Now at 36 years of age, Byrd’s future never seemed brighter. He has a loving family – including his wife, Michelle, whom he married in 1991 just before cutting his first big record deal – and three children: Evee, 8, Logan, 5, and 7-month-old Jared. And his career continues to hit new heights as well as Byrd is on the verge of releasing yet another album entitled “Truth about Men,” due out this July.

But while Byrd is fiercely proud of his family and career, the topic of fishing is never far from his mind.

“Most of my time is consumed with my family and career,” he said. “So it’s hard to do a whole lot of fishing. But it’s something I still love to do whenever I get a chance.”

And he seems to make the most of that chance when the opportunity presents itself. For example, when he’s one the road, he’s been known to take along a “belly boat” – described as a high-tech float tube – to maximize his time on the water. He even has his own line of crankbaits called Tracy Byrd’s Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous baits made by Bill Nonnan Lures out of Fort Smith, Ark. In addition, he sponsors a four-event bass-fishing trail known as Tracy Byrd Big Bass Tournaments. The one-day contests take place in Beaumont, Little Rock, Charlotte and Pigeon Forge, Tenn. A spokesman for the Special Olympics, an organization that he’s been intimately involved in for years, Byrd donates $10 from each tournament entry fee and 10 cents for every one of his lures sold back to his charity.

If that weren’t enough, he’s also taking some time out to guest host an outdoor fishing show sponsored by the Strike King lure company.

Not bad for a guy that doesn’t have too much time to fish.

Country music and fishing go hand in hand

<IMG SRC="/images/thumbnails/06946.jpg" WIDTH="180" HEIGHT="120" ALT="Tracy Byrd took some time out to chat with FLW Tour pro David Walker.
(Photo by Gary Mortenson)” BORDER=”1″ ALIGN=”LEFT”>Anybody who follows the FLW Tour or any professional bass-fishing circuit, for that matter, knows all too well that where fishing is involved, country music usually isn’t too far behind. By why is that? For Byrd, the answer is easy.

“Before we’re country singers, we were country boys,” he said. “And country boys like to fish. Basically, I think we’re just cut from the same cloth.”

Although Byrd still waxes poetic about the country music legends he idolized growing up – Merle Haggard, Ray Price and Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys to name a few – he said that some of his greatest moments have come meeting the legends of the sport in the high-octane world of professional bass fishing.

“It has been great meeting Merle Haggard and all of those heroes of mine over the years,” he said. “But I always tell people, that as exciting as that was, it was even more exciting to me to meet Rick Clunn, Larry Nixon and the rest of the guys on the professional fishing tour. That’s one of the great fringe benefits to doing what I do.”

Yep, life couldn’t be better for Byrd right now. If he’s not spending time with his family or cutting a new album, you can be sure that he’s out on the water somewhere slow-rolling a spinner bait – Byrd’s favorite technique – in search of that elusive state-record bass. And when and if his music career ultimately comes to a close, Byrd said he has already prepared for that eventuality.

“I’m going to do this until I can’t do it anymore,” said Byrd. “And when I finally retire, hopefully, I’ll get to be the host of my own outdoor fishing show. Wouldn’t that be great?”

Byrd then smiled as if to say he hadn’t forgotten the tough choice that 16-year-old had to make after all.