Billy Dean was at a Wyoming rodeo recently when he was approached by a leather-skinned, 40-year-old cowboy.
The man had tears in his eyes.
”It was real moving,” said the country singer, scheduled to perform Saturday at the World Music Theatre in Tinley Park, with Clint Black, Aaron Tippin and Little Texas.
”He said his mom recently sent him a picture of him in his Roy Rogers cowboy hat and guns, and that the song `Billy the Kid` had really meant a lot to him,” Dean said. ”For someone who`s 10 years my senior, who obviously has seen a lot more of life than I have . . . for me to be able to write something he could relate to so well really made me feel good.”
”Billy the Kid” was Dean`s recent No. 1 country single. Written not about the famous outlaw but, rather, the earlier days of the singer himself, it was an attempt to recapture the innocence he lost during a sometimes-disappointing decade in Nashville, he said.
It was his second No. 1 single, the first being the 1991 hit ”Somewhere in My Broken Heart.” With two more singles that reached No. 2 and another that attained No. 3, Dean may be the least-known of the country newcomers.
One reason for his comparative anonymity seems to be the recent year he spent under contract to the Ken Stilts Co., a management firm that
masterminded the hugely successful Judds Farewell Tour in 1991 and Wynonna Judd`s equally high-profile introductory solo tour in 1992.
The superstar mother and daughter naturally required most of the company`s time.
”I did the Judds tour, and that helped me in some ways,” Dean said,
”although I think I may have been overshadowed in other ways because it was their last one.”
But Dean noted that the Stilts firm exerted clout that helped him win the award for top new male vocalist and ”Somewhere in My Broken Heart” win song of the year at the Los Angeles-based Academy of Country Music Awards early this spring.
Those awards, though, didn`t prove to be a recognition bonanza; the Los Angeles riots knocked everything else out of the headlines for more than a week.
By the time those awards came, he and Stilts had parted ways.
Dean started managing himself, something he had done before, and the results have been impressive.
He said the sales of his current Liberty Records album, ”Billy Dean,”
have tripled; he has had a No. 1 single with ”Billy the Kid”; he has headlined and sold out some small venues; and he has gotten a spot for much of this year on a major tour, Clint Black`s 150-city ”Hard Way” jaunt.
”They say you can`t manage yourself, and I don`t really think you can either,” he said. ”But I started my own office this April, and Liberty has supported us, and we`ve been able to do some things.”
Most of the oil that keeps his new machine running smoothly, he said, is supplied by office manager Jamey Burklow, a former country singer (under the name Jamey Ryan) whom he describes as the source of much career help over the years of his Nashville apprenticeship.
Dean hasn`t gotten giddy with his self-directed success, though. He said he is close to making a deal with another manager.
”I`m approaching a level that neither Jamey nor I know anything about:
the headlining stage,” he explained.
He said that the recording of his third album is well under way. After an unusual number of male-oriented songs, such as ”Billy the Kid,” Dean`s just- released new single is a love ballad titled ”If There Hadn`t Been You,”
an attempt to court the female attention being offered screamingly at virtually every tour stop.
”The attention is flattering, and it helps me compete with the Billy Ray Cyruses and some of the younger cats coming along,” he said.
”But I play it down onstage. I kind of poke fun at myself. Elvis did that, you know. It was like, `Hey, this is fun, but I don`t take it too seriously.` That`s kind of the way I treat it. The audience can see on my face that it`s more of a joke.
”What I`m looking for from the young female and young male demographics is people who like me because of my music as well as my appearance. The music, after all, is what`s going to keep me here when I`m old and gray. It`s what I`m going to leave behind.”
