{"id":4632,"date":"2019-10-03T14:22:50","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T18:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/?post_type=wfsu-news&p=4632"},"modified":"2019-10-09T09:37:14","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T13:37:14","slug":"quincys-own-billy-dean-is-back-reacting-to-ken-burns-and-celebrating-his-hometown-heritage","status":"publish","type":"wfsu-news","link":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wfsu-news\/quincys-own-billy-dean-is-back-reacting-to-ken-burns-and-celebrating-his-hometown-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Quincy’s Own Billy Dean is Back, Reacting to Ken Burns and Celebrating his Hometown Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ken Burns\u2019 recent PBS series on the history of country music was a profound experience for millions of viewers. One of those viewers was Billy Dean, the Quincy native who achieved country music stardom and has now returned to his North Florida roots.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Billy Dean was born in Quincy in 1962. He loved music and was playing out professionally while still in his teens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s such a diverse culture of people here,\u201d he observed, \u201cwhich also makes your exposure to music very diverse. And so growing up, there was the music I needed to play to make a living at the some of the bars around here: Rocky\u2019s, Sid\u2019s, the Horseshoe Lounge in Quincy, Spinnakers over in Panama City. All these places.\u201d<\/p>\n

One recurring theme in the Ken Burns PBS documentary was the extreme eclecticism of country music. The genre has always been a mash-up of influences from all over. Dean\u2019s personal musical development followed the same path.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a black church right across the street from where I grew up,\u201d he recalled. I was hearing praise and worship music like you never heard from the outside of that church every Sunday. I was hearing Monty Bittner over in Quincy, Florida playing these classic country songs from this collection of music that he had. Just right up the road you had Lynyrd Skynyrd over in Jacksonville and the Allman Brothers and other guys who were getting into rhythm and blues and Motown music and blending that with southern gospel and a bit of rock to create southern rock.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dean\u2019s talent and work ethic ultimately landed him in Nashville. Where he first tried to impress the record companies with his vast command of different musical styles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich really made it difficult, because you get to Nashville and one of the first things they ask you is, \u2018Who are you?\u2019 he laughed. \u2018What makes you different from everyone else?\u2019 I would sing for people and they\u2019d go, \u2018Son, we already have a Merle Haggard,\u2019 because I could sound just like Merle Haggard; I could sound like anybody because I was used to playing those bars and that\u2019s what you\u2019d do. You\u2019d sing like them. But I really didn\u2019t find out who I was until I picked up a pen and paper and started writing songs for my voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which, among many other tunes, led Dean to pen his signature 1991 hit \u201cSomewhere in my Broken Heart,\u201d which was actually recorded first by Randy Travis two years earlier. It is these kinds of deeply personal ballads, says Dean that reflect what he considers his truest musical expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cKind of a singer\/songwriter, fingerpicking style like James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg, the Eagles, some of those guys that influenced me, but I couldn\u2019t talk about in Nashville,\u201d he mused. Then there\u2019s the matter of the music itself changing. As recently as a generation ago, Dean says the music industry figured that young people would listen to mostly to rock and hip-hop, gradually gravitating to country as adulthood set in.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting a real job and into the real world, you generally matured into country music where you found stories written about real life and about the working man and you grew into country music. That was the succession and country music\u2019s subject matter was skewed to identify with that working man, like what we saw Ken Burns talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came a seismic shift in 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cA little girl named Taylor Swift comes along while she\u2019s in high school and sings and writes in a country music style about high school life,\u201d he marveled.<\/p>\n

And even though Swift has since gone full-blown mainstream pop, Dean insisted the demographic die was cast as the industry considered abandoning its traditional adult target market.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre they going to take part in the new revolutionary way music is distributed through phones and other devices that the older audience had no idea how to use?\u201d Dean said, speculating on the discussions that he believes took place in the highest councils of the business. \u201cAnd the whole industry \u2013 and this is only my opinion \u2013 saw if they didn\u2019t make music for the younger generation, they wouldn\u2019t make it. They had to make music for people who knew how to work a phone and social media.\u201d<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t even get Dean started on all the \u201cbro-country\u201d hits, or \u201cOld Town Road.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my gosh, can you believe that song?!?!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cI was doing a gig the other day and my wife Stephanie suggested if I broke into that \u2018Old Town Road\u2019 it would bring the house down. And I told her nothing doing. I have nothing against it, but I\u2019m just going to wait until it swings back around.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Dean isn\u2019t waiting for the music to swing around. He\u2019s back home in North Florida. And he\u2019s got big hometown plans. In the next part of this saga, he talks about his own transition from hit-maker to historian.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

No longer a denizen of the Nashville scene that made him a star, Billy Dean is back home. He bought a house on St. George Island. His mother, now in her 90s, lives in Tallahassee and he visits her regularly. But his musical focus has undergone a change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still writing music but I\u2019m actually finding a lot of stories here in North Florida,\u201d he revealed. \u201cI\u2019m actually working on a project called \u2018Gadsden\u2019 about Gadsden County in World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s a task he’s not tackling alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just me with a couple of professors at Florida State University who have been instrumental in helping me with my research and I had a lot of material that I inherited. My family served, I lost two uncles in that war and my dad was a paratrooper and won four bronze stars. But it\u2019s not just about my family. As I was digging in, I found that Gadsden County paid quite a price during World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also found many stories that have never been told.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd not only the white folks, but also the black folks,\u201d he insisted. \u201cI\u2019ve been interviewing some of those guys. I\u2019ve got Mr. Fisher, a 97-year old guy who wasn\u2019t allowed to fight in World War II, but I interviewed him and come to find out that he lived about 5 streets from us and his job was to drive supplies into France for people like my dad, the paratroopers who had jumped in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dean said this multi-media project will certainly include plenty of his original music with a decidedly traditional feel in keeping with the time period.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the music that I\u2019m writing now is taking me back to a more traditional country sound like I grew up with,\u201d he observed. \u201cSteel guitars, the story, three chords and the truth as the old clich\u00e9 goes. But a lot of story about our county set in that time frame.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Dean insists the production will go beyond the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sitting down trying to write scripts for a documentary,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever done something like this. And I\u2019ll tell you what; It\u2019s kind of nice not having to make something rhyme for a change!\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n

Dean also remarked he has a self-imposed deadline to start rolling out the various segments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m going to put out, probably on YouTube, 5 episodes, one about Gadsden County and then about my dad\u2019s brothers and then the people that I interviewed, are going to be in this piece, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet even in the midst of this ambitious endeavor, Billy Dean insisted he’d also like to get back to his days as a local honky-tonk hero. So he’s reconnected with some of the players who were in one of Tallahassee’s most popular local country bands in the 1980s and 90s, Southern Satisfaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cBobby Kennedy and Billy Blackman,\u201d he smiled, ticking off the names of some of the group\u2019s players. \u201cThat was the band that I would go and see when I was old enough because they were just the best! They could play a country or disco song just like the (version on the) radio. They were so good and they didn\u2019t drink. They were straight and all-business. They were one of the first groups that I learned your job is to throw the party, not be the party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Billy Dean has truly come home. <\/p>\n

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