THE FIRE IN BILLY - by Billy Heath
Growing up in rural North Carolina, with two older sisters that were wrapped up in their Barbies, I was left to carve out my own little world. I certainly wasn't lonely, though—not with my mother’s extensive record collection filling the room. I gravitated straight to Meet the Beatles! and Elvis Presley’s Golden Records, and one of those two albums was a permanent fixture on the turntable. Those timeless tracks provided a steady, warm soundtrack while I lined up my Matchbox cars and built little forts for my plastic Cowboys and Indians. I constantly watched Hee Haw, mimicking Buck Owens with my own Buck Owens guitar, and when it was time for my daily nap, I'd fall right to sleep listening to Charley Pride's "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'" on the 45 record that my mom had gotten me at the local Zayre department store.
That little world was my very first domain. I engineered the dirt roads, mapped out the intersections, and orchestrated the standoffs, completely lost in my own imagination with the King and the Fab Four in the background backing up every move.
As a young teenager, that soundtrack expanded. I would sit and listen to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 every Saturday morning out on the backyard swing, anticipating who would be number one, and embracing every new entry into the ranks with eager excitement. Then came the midnight movie series at the Hanes Mall Cinemas in Winston-Salem. One night, my sister and her boyfriend—a guy who was basically considered a local rockstar legend at just 17—invited me to go see The Song Remains the Same, and that movie ignited a spark.
A few weeks later, that same boyfriend got a Marshall stack for his birthday to go along with the incredible Gibson Les Paul tobacco sunburst he already possessed. One night at his house, he cranked that Marshall wide open and started shredding on that Les Paul like nobody’s business. At that exact point, that spark burst into a flame!
It wasn’t too much longer before I had my own guitar, and found myself sitting for hours drilling the pentatonic blues scale, and learning the intro to "Cat Scratch Fever"—the mandatory first riff for anyone that picked up a guitar in the late 70s.
That garage-band obsession didn't stay in the bedroom. Before long, those endless hours of practice turned into playing in local bands, constantly writing songs while pulling from a youth of incredible music inspirations. I might not have ended up a stadium-headlining rockstar, but that initial spark gave me something even better: a lifelong career doing what I love in the heart of the music industry.