Billy Ray Cyrus

Sunday September 3, 2000 Columbia County Fair Chatham, NewYork
Story and photos by William Bolton





The huge crowd made up of fans young and old from as far away as California waited in anticipation for perhaps the biggest star that the Chatham / Columbia County Fair had ever brought in to appear. When Billy Ray Cyrus finally took the stage, the crowd, especially the female fans in attendance went crazy.






Billy Ray did not disappoint them, he shook his achy-breaky butt off and even performed a "G" rated strip tease act showing off his well developed / tattooed arms.


Musically he and The Sly Dog band were terrific. He sang some of his older fan favorites ( yes, of course he sang "Achy-Breaky Heart" and "Busy Man") then they performed songs from the new Sony Nashville release "Southern Rain". The three songs from "Southern Rain" were "You Won't Be Lonely Now", " Hey Elvis" and "Trailer Park" all of which were very good and will surely make this album a big seller. Billy Ray played both acoustic and electric guitar and was backed up by The Sly Dog band which included guitar, bass, steel guitar,drums, and keyboard all of whom did a wonderful job.






Billy Ray has a big heart and he showed it several times during the day here in Chatham. Some examples of this were: A person in the crowd was being assisted by local E.M.S. apparently suffering from heat distress, Billy Ray wet a towel with his water bottle and asked a deputy sheriff who was guarding the stage to bring it to the person. He stopped in the middle of the show to autograph items that some fans had thrown up onto stage and threw them back. Frequently he leaned over and handed his guitar picks to fans. Then at the end of the show he stood at the front of the stage signing autographs for quite some time and then went backstage to sign again at the meet and greet.


Billy Ray had been out of the spotlight for some time, but, with the release of "Southern Rain" coupled with the fact that Billy Ray who is also an actor, will be starring in a PAX-TV movie this fall, has brought him back in a hurry. As I said before there were fans here from as far away as California. Billy Ray has a very loyal and active fan club, many of whom were in attendance. I had the pleasure of meeting several of these interesting people including a gentleman who is such a big fan that he has Billy Ray's image tattooed on both of his arms.






I'm sure that the wonderful people that organize the Columbia County Fair will be hard pressed to out do themselves next year, but I know for a fact that they are already thinking about it and I will be there.




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