HMKRC – Billy Terry Interview

“Hello, my name is Aletheia, and I’m with the Highland Mid-Kids Radio Club. Today, we are speaking with Billy Terry. Thank you for joining us today – could you tell us a bit about yourself?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I was born and raised in Virginia, and my father was born and raised in this area. That’s what brought me to Highland County. And I am married to a wonderful wife of 27 years Ricky, and I have three kids, Alex, Allie and Torie.”

“Hi, my name is Amelia. We understand you were involved in the music business. Could you tell us about that?”

“So, I was a songwriter out in Nashville on Music Row for about seven years. I wrote professionally every day. And as a songwriter, you get a publishing deal, and that would be similar to a singer or an artist having a record deal. So every day I went down to Music Row, and we had co-writes, and our songs were pitched to different artists. We might even write with the artists themselves, and hopefully get on record and radio and have a big hit.”

“Hello, my name is Jill Phelps. Where do you get your song ideas?”

“Well, really, from everyday life. You know, if you observe a lot of what’s going on around you, and you have situations that happen, and you kind of write about things that you know about, ideas just kind of flow. Harlan Howard, who’s just a monumental songwriter out in Nashville, he said songwriters need big ears. You need to hear everything and take it in and pay attention to what’s going on around you, and the ideas will come.”

“Who have you written songs for?”

“Well, I’ve written songs for a lot of young artists that had record deals and were getting started –  the Chris Weaver Band, Eyes of Emiline. Alan Jackson recorded one of my songs called “Some Things Are Not For Sale”. It did not make his record, which was, you know… I guess the biggest things about songwriting is you have super high highs and you have, you know, low lows so, well,  a great example of that is when you get the call that Alan is recording one of your songs, and he’s in the studio, recording it, and then 9, 10, 12, weeks later, you find out that it didn’t make the record. That would be an example of a low low. So it’s an up and down business, for sure.”

“How did a Nashville songwriter come to live here?”

“Well, as I said earlier, my dad was born and raised in this area. He was born and raised in Mitchelltown, just outside of Hot Springs. So we always came to Highland and Bath counties, it’s just always been a part of my life. And I actually lived here about 25 years ago, right after me and my wife got married, we moved up here and lived here for about four years.”

Thank you for joining us. This has been the Highland Mid-Kids Radio Club for Allegheny Mountain Radio.