Digital rendition of Frank Dycus. L. Best.

"I went to Kentucky to die."

His gaze unwavering, Frank Dycus repeats the statement. One of Nashville's finest songwriters, Dycus is weaving his story as if it were one of his songs…fine tuned and to the point, with a bit of romance, adventure and mystery thrown in for good measure. His delivery, like his live performance, is measured to keep the listener's attention.

"I got up one day, packed my toothbrush, and left Nashville for my brother's home in Kentucky. I went there to die. There wasn't anything else for me to do."

To backtrack for a moment, Dycus had undergone several heart angioplasties in Nashville, seeing doctors at all three of Nashville's heart hospitals, but still found himself blacking out and hallucinating and losing his memory.

"I would see snakes on the kitchen floor, but no one else could see them," Dycus says. "How in the hell can you explain that to someone? My doctors told my wife at the time that this was normal for a heart patient, that I just wanted attention. Hell, I didn't want attention--I wanted to be well. And since I didn't think that was possible, well…l just figured I'd go to Kentucky and die."

And he might have, had it not been for his continuing songwriting endeavors and a beautiful woman, two things that Dycus usually keeps in his life.

Dycus was going through a pretty harsh divorce in Nashville, and he still didn't know what was going on in his life, health-wise. Nevertheless, Dycus continued to focus on his songwriting. It had always been one of his methods of operation to invite songwriters to join him wherever he was to co-write, and Kentucky was no different - he invited songwriter Shawn Camp to travel north and the two men spent many creative hours writing together.

A chance meeting with one of his brother's neighbors, a pretty young woman with whom there was a mutual attraction, was one of the luckiest things to happen to Dycus in a long time. Soon the two were spending a lot of time together.

"It just so happened that she had a friend who worked with one of the leading heart specialists in Kentucky, and she tried to get me to go see him," Dycus says. "I told her I was through with doctors, that none of them had helped me much, and I didn't want to go. So one day she told me we were going to garage sales and we ended up at the hospital to see this doctor."

Digital rendition.. L. Best.

It proved to be an excellent maneuver for Dycus, because it didn't take long for the doctor to find what he thought the problem might be...carotid arteries that were more than 75 percent blocked. The lack of oxygen to the brain was causing Dycus' hallucinations and memory loss.

"They put me right in the hospital and scheduled surgery. The doctor asked me what I wanted to do and I told him I want to play basketball for the University of Kentucky! He said he'd see what he could do."

Dycus came through the carotid arteries surgery and five heart bypasses, then sought to make a place for himself in Kentucky, leading what he terms a "normal" life. That lasted for about three years. "I was not writing songs, just living up there with this woman and having a different kind of lifestyle, but it just wasn't for me," Dycus says. "Finally it got to where it was driving me crazy, so I called Mike Taliaferro, a friend in Nashville and said 'Either I come down there and live with you and write songs, or I'm going up to Dale Hollow Lake and just disappear.' He told me to come on down.”

Once again, Dycus literally packed his toothbrush, this time returning to Nashville, and to his one true love, writing songs.

"All I've ever wanted to do was write songs, fish and entertain people," Dycus says. He's done that and much much more. The native of Hard Money, Kentucky was in the Air Force when he decided to visit Nashville, 1959. He came down from Spokane, Washington and met with folks at Jim Reeves' publishing company. Encouraged about his music, he returned to Spokane, and from there, moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he completed his stint in the service. All the time he was performing in clubs and slipping in some of his original material as much as he could. In 1962 he came back to Music City and signed with Pete Drake at Window Music Company as a staff writer. Disillusioned after several months, he went back to Kansas and started working for Boeing Aircraft Co., all the while writing for Window and sending his songs to Nashville. In 1967 he came back to Nashville, renewed his contract with Pete Drake and continued writing songs.

"I didn't listen to the radio, I didn't even know what Billboard was, so I didn't really know the kind of songs they were wanting," Dycus says. "One day Tommy Hill called me in his office at Window and said 'Frank I'm cutting the Willis Brothers on Monday, why don't you go and write me a truck driving song.'

"I said 'Tommy I can't write a truck driving song.' He said 'Yes you can, just pretend you're a truck driver and you can write anything. If you'll write me a truck driving song I'll cut it.' So I went out and wrote him a truck driving song, "White Lines and Road Side Signs," and he cut it. And then my second cut was Dick Curliss' "Hot Springs Tonight." In April 1968, I had my first hit record, "Lilacs and Fire," by George Morgan.

"Finally I understood that we're making product here in Nashville. We're not selling feelings and we're not selling emotions, we're selling a product that has feelings and emotions. What you've got to do is combine the feelings and emotions into a product the record buyer feels and thinks. If they can't identify with it, they won't buy it."

It's a philosophy that has taken Dycus from the truck driving cuts to songs recorded by Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner, Ringo Starr, George Strait, George Jones, Kenny Rogers, and many, many more. It's also a philosophy that he has instilled in a number of young songwriters who seem to gravitate to him, among them Dean Dillon, Roger Brown and now Billy Currington, and Scott Emerick.

"I don't know why they find me," Dycus says with a shake of the head. "I'm no teacher...I never asked for them to look me up, they just do."

Billy Currington and Frank Dycus

Perhaps they seek him out because in Dycus they find a man who truly loves the music and makes it his life. He lives it, eats it, breathes it and yes, makes love to it, through the phrasing of the words and the weaving of the magic that, in turn, becomes a song that touches the hearts and minds of the people who hear it.

Dycus' songs have become standards. Whether it's the Jerry Lee Lewis classic "He Can't Fill My Shoes," Mark Chestnutt's "Gonna Get A Life" or George Jones' "I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair," Dycus is the consummate songwriter. Strait's "Unwound," "Down and Out" and "Marina del Rey" are just a few examples of songs that launched that singer's career. "Is Forever Longer Than Always" was one of Porter and Dolly's most beautiful love songs.

Of all of his protégés to date. Dean Dillon has to be the ultimate in writing partners. The way the two first wrote together, and the friendship and bond that developed, went beyond that of simple songwriting partners.

"I was sitting at this restaurant called Close Quarters, which was a music hangout back in the 1970s, and Dean was over in the corner writing with Shel Silverstein. When they got done he come over to me and said 'Remember me, I'm Dean Dillon.' I said 'You ain't Dean Dillon, you're Dean Rutherford' and he said 'Well I changed my name and I've got a deal with RCA and I want to write a song with you.'

"So I thought who cares because I'd seen thousands come and go over the years, and it's usually the people who are there when you're on top that are no where to be found when you're on the bottom, and I was at the bottom right then. He said 'I want to co-write with you' so I said 'Okay' and he said 'No, I'm serious.' I told him I was out of the business…hadn't written anything in a long time…but he went to his car and got his guitar and came back and said 'I've got this hit idea…l've been wrapped around her finger but tonight I'm gonna unwind.'

"I stopped him and said 'That ain't no hit idea' and his jaw dropped six inches. I said 'The hit idea is the woman I had wrapped around my finger just come unwound.’ And we sat there and we wrote it at Close Quarters at noon with a bunch of people around us tryin' to tell us what line to use and what line to throw away. We wrote three songs that afternoon and then he just started hanging around. Every time I'd look up he'd be there and we'd write another one."

The friendship has lasted through fishing trips, divorces, hit songs, good times and bad. It's not something either of them tries to explain; they just accept it as a part of life and go on with it.

“These new writers that come to town, they have to understand that the music business is first and foremost a business," says Dycus." They have to know that in this business, you do business with people you know, they do business with their friends. So that means you've got to become a part of the community…a part of Music Row far beyond the role of a songwriter. Having good songs is a part of it, but everybody's got good songs. I've met writers who have better songs than I do, but they'll never make it in the business because they don't understand that you do business with your friends."
Although Dycus hasn't made a commitment to a publishing company since he's moved back to Nashville, he has committed to a record deal with an album he cut several years ago. True to form, it is not your typical country album.

"Hell no, it's a dirty album, and the singer is Horny Frank and the Tennessee Shitkickers," Dycus says with a laugh. "I went to several people with these songs I'd written a few years ago, the kind of songs you just sing among friends or at the right time of the night in clubs. Finally someone said 'You should just record those yourself and put out your own album,' so that's what I've done."

The songs on Horny Frank & the Tennessee Shitkickers are sure to strike a nerve with folks, with such titles as "Pain In the Ass," Hungry, Horny and Blue," "Baby Ran Off With Her Vibrator" and "Gonna Get Bred." All are written with that distinctive Dycus sense of humor and performed by a man who knows the bar room crowd as well as he knows the satin sheets types.

Dycus has had a career filled with the sweet success of cut after cut, followed by the valleys of phone calls not returned. One has followed the other with bitter-sweet succession, and Dycus is sure that sweet success will be his once again. A few years back he wanted "just one more" hit record and he had "I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair." Today, he wants a few more notches in the charts and he's committed to getting them. It might be with Scott Emerick, it might be with Billy Currington, or it might be with the songwriter who suddenly shows up at his door, eager to learn from one of Nashville's master songwriters.

"I've been successful in this business because I am committed and I try to write what the public wants to hear," Dycus says. "I've got 50-plus years of experience to rely on. I've gone through every kind of misery and happiness that's known to human beings except death. I feel like this is my destiny and I have no control over it.

"You know, I didn't start writing songs for money. If it's in the cards for me to write a million seller, then I'll do it. And if they come in tomorrow and say 'Dycus you're not ever gonna have another hit record and you'll never make another dime with your music,' I'd still be right here, writing songs." More...