True Stories #1: Achy Breaky Heart and Jesus

I felt like The Man. Only a year or so out of high school, and I had quickly gone from being a backup dj at a southern gospel radio station to permanent morning drive-time status, with the station's highest ratings ever, a national gospel award nomination, and ... I had recently become the music director, which meant I got to determine our play list (of course, we'll ignore the fact that, as a low-wattage, AM, religious station, we probably had less than 20,000 listeners, most of whom were old enough to be my parents or grandparents. I still thought I was cool).

Drunk with power -- oh yes, I was, though I wouldn't have admitted it then. You see, record companies routinely sent me their artist's singles, and I alone had the power to decide whether my station would play them, and if they would become hits on our chart, which would then be reported to the national charting organizations (we'll discuss the hilarious and bogus nature of "hit music charts" another day).

But on this particular day, I was about to encounter the full weight of CCM (Cheesy Christian Music). After the secretary delivered my mail, I opened up a package to receive a new single from a gospel family group (we'll call them "The Andersons"). I looked at the title of their single -- it was called "Jesus Will Heal Your Achy Breaky Heart". Yes, people this was when Billy Ray Cyrus was riding high with the ultimate country-pop aural cotton candy experience. So with the grim fascination of witnessing a train wreck, I slid the CD into my office player, wondering if they were really, really, going to do what I thought they were going to do.

They did. Loud and clear, in that already too-familiar melody:
Jesus can heal your achy breaky heart
I just want you to understand ....

Whoa boy. Two dj's ran to my office, eager to hear -- even eager to play it on the air! As a witnessing tool! I had to get rough ... and believe me, when I left the station that day, I left with the disc. Didn't want anyone to dig for it in my trash and play it on the air while the cat was away.

Two days later I got a call from "Paul" the radio promotions guy at "Morningbutter Records" in Nashville. "Did you get 'Achy Breaky Heart' yet?" he said.

"Yes," I said. "Dude, I can't play that."

"Why? It's already in the Top 10 of at least 20 other stations."

"It's corny."

"Aw, come on, man. You're in Louisville. I thought Kentucky was big on country music."

"Country, yes. But corn grows in Illinois."

We went back-and-forth, and it was a mighty tussle. Radio guys don't like to mess with record company guys -- they have the power to cut us off from all the comp tickets and freebee CD's, t-shirts, and "I love Jesus" key chains we're used to getting, not to mention access to their bands for interviews, tag lines, and other niceties. But I drew a line in the sand. Yes, I became a man.

He called me back the next month. 'Achy Breaky Heart' was already the #14 song in the national southern gospel chart -- a very impressive first-month feat on a chart that is notoriously slow and backward. But I held my ground, with the full knowledge that, no doubt, countless souls would forever reject the gospel of Jesus Christ because I, Bobby Gilles, had refused to allow "Jesus Can Heal Your Achy Breaky Heart" on my station. It still keeps me up at nights.

The next month, sanity took control. The achy breaky song had fallen to #37. A month later, it was gone from the chart, and those music directors who had been responsible for its meteoric rise were hiding in the shadows, like two people who kiss in front of a room full of people, only to discover later that they're cousins.

As an aside, let me add that, in no wise do I think that all Christian bands are a part of the Cheesy Christian Music genre, and I would also say that many southern gospel groups have a commitment to quality that far eclipses most of what is heard on secular radio. Nevertheless, "Jesus Can Heal Your Achy Breaky Heart" was not the first, and would not be the last, substandard, cheesy rip-off of a substandard, cheesy secular song, band, book, movie, or t-shirt. But it was my nemesis, and I dealt it a fatal blow, at least in Louisville. Where is Mayor Abramson with my merit badge?

Stay tuned next week for another edition of True Stories (#2 perhaps? Am I linear? Am I chronological?)