During the 1970s, as country music artists gradually crossed over to pop, one casualty of the genre’s evolution was the cowboy hat.
While some artists like Riders in the Sky and Hank Williams Jr. held on to the tradition, many singers of the era abandoned hats. Some gave up their cowboys hats for ball caps — and some of the old cowboy-hat-wearing singers, like Ernest Tubb, decided their time in music had passed. The likes of Kenny Rogers and Ronnie Milsap, kings of crossover, never wore hats on stage, but their popularity came at a time when the genre didn’t command it.
Then, with the arrival of the 1980s and the phenomenal success of George Strait, the cowboy hat began to return to country music. Strait has never been seen on stage without his trademark Resistol cowboy hat, either black or off-white, depending on the season (if you’d like one of your own, they’re about $285).
Imitation is the best form of flattery, and by the end of the decade — and a few Entertainer of the Year awards for Strait — the cowboy hat made its return to mainstream country music. In fact, enough performers took to wearing cowboy boy hats that they almost made a sub-genre themselves, known as “hat acts.” The hat became so important as a part of these artists’ personas that they were contractually required to wear them.
Some of these performers came and went, while others held on throughout the 1990s. One of the more successful hat acts was Tracy Byrd.
Tracy Byrd came by his cowboy hat honestly. He was a native Texan, born in Vidor in 1966. First attending college at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, Byrd later transferred to what is now Texas State University to study business. While there, he performed as a vocalist with a local band called “Rimfire,” which also featured fellow southeast Texan and future hat act star Mark Chesnut.
But Byrd had little musical ambition. He wasn’t an outstanding guitar player, but he DID have a voice. On the dare of a friend, he recorded Hank Williams’ “You’re Cheatin’ Heart” at a small studio. The results so impressed the studio owner that he entered Byrd in a local talent contest.
He must have fared well; by 1992, MCA had signed Tracy Byrd to a recording contract.
Byrd’s first two singles with MCA made little noise on the charts, with neither breaking into the Top 40.
Then came a bombshell. “Holding Heaven” — just Byrd’s third single from his debut album — skyrocketed to No. 1. After a lackluster follow-up single, Byrd released his second album, “No Ordinary Man,” and began a streak of Top 10 hits with “Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous” and what has become his signature song, “Watermelon Crawl.”
He followed up those efforts with a No. 5 hit, “The First Step,” then released the No. 2, “The Keeper of the Stars.” The latter won Song of the Year at the Academy of Country Music awards in 1995.
After a lackluster third album, Byrd released “Big Love” in 1996. The title track made it to No. 3 on the charts. The follow up, a cover of Johnny Paycheck’s “Don’t Take Her, She’s All I’ve Got,” followed at No. 4. He scored another No. 3 hit two years later with “I’m From the Country.”
It would be another four years before he racked up another big hit with “Ten Rounds of Jose Cuervo.” This one reached No. 1 and is noted by some sources as the “funniest song in country music history.”
If there had been any question about Tracy Byrd’s priorities after “I’m From the Country,” all one had to do was look at his pursuits beyond music to see he truly was a country boy at heart.
An outdoorsman, Byrd is credited with developing a crank bait, aptly named, “Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous.” He hosted the “Tracy Byrd Homecoming Weekend” — a golf, music and fishing event to raise money for children’s charities — and he competed in the Houston Marathon in 2002. Byrd even published a book, “Eat Like a Byrd,” a collection of his favorite outdoor recipes.
As an outdoorsman, Byrd has appeared on TNN Outdoors and Mossy Oak’s “Hunting the Country” television shows. In fact, he frequently wears camo while performing on stage, and his bass players uses a camo-themed instrument.
As for TNN, Byrd says, “I love hunting and fishing. The TNN work gives me another avenue to express what I feel and love to do and tell all the people that’s important to us. God has given me a gift. People look up to me and I believe that I have a responsibility to give something back to them. I want to support hunting, fishing and the out-of-doors. I believe that nature enhances my creativity.”
He notes his love of the outdoors in one of his later songs. In “Before I Die,” he sings, “I wanna float the Mississippi in a boat I’ve yet to buy.” He considers “Before I Die” to be among his favorite songs he ever recorded, despite the fact it was released long after the name Tracy Byrd quit appearing on country music charts.
When it comes down to it, for Tracy Byrd, the “hat act” is really no act at all. He truly is a cowboy-hat-wearing lover of the Texas outdoors, and he’s not ashamed to let anyone know.
Until next time, don’t go 10 rounds with Jose Cuervo. As Tracy Byrd sings, “after round five or round six” you’ll have forgot what you came to forget in the first place.
Photo from tracybyrdmusic.com.
Since retiring from a career as an outdoor recreation professional from the State of Arkansas, Kris Rutherford has worked as a freelance writer and, with his wife, owns and publishes a small Northeast Texas newspaper, The Roxton Progress. Kris has worked as a ghostwriter and editor and has authored seven books of his own. He became interested in the trucking industry as a child in the 1970s when his family traveled the interstates twice a year between their home in Maine and their native Texas. He has been a classic country music enthusiast since the age of nine when he developed a special interest in trucking songs.
