Singer Achieves Country Music Fame : ‘Wild-Eyed Dream’ Came True, After Much True Grit

Ricky Van Shelton, a former pipe fitter, is living out his dreams of singing country music hits throughout the United States instead of in an old general store in the hills of Virginia.

Shelton, 36, has become an emerging star in country music since leaving the mountains around Grit, Va., two days after Christmas in 1984.

Since arriving in Nashville, he has recorded an album, “Wild-Eyed Dream,” that has been on the country music charts for nearly a year. His single, “Somebody Lied,” was a No. 1 hit in December. His “Crime of Passion” and “Wild-Eyed Dreams” were also hits on the 45-r.p.m. charts.

“I’ve thought about this (opportunity) every day of my life, every day,” he said. “When I was in school, the blackboard would disappear because I was daydreaming about this.”

His concerts with such stars as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Sawyer Brown contrast with his earlier singing days at the old general store near Grit, which local folk say used to be a chicken coop.

“People came from 50 miles around in all four directions,” Shelton recalled. “There’d be 15 guitars and two or three banjos on stage at once. It was a lot of fun.

“I heard bad music there and good music too. We’d sing all night. I remember once I only had three strings left on my guitar at 5 a.m.”

By day, he was a pipe fitter for 10 years, making $5 to $10 an hour.

“I started as a helper, toting this and toting that. Pipe fitting is hard, but it’s a good job. There’s an art to it. You learn angles and how to figure them.”

He also worked as a car salesman, appliance store manager, grocery store clerk and house painter. But music was his passion.

“I don’t know anything about sports,” he said. “I was always on some porch pickin’. I remember one night we rented the armory and 10 people showed up. We gave them their money back and went home.”

Despite that setback, at age 32 he and his wife headed to Nashville so he could pursue his dreams.

“It was hard leaving the hills and family and friends,” he confessed. “But the uncertainty didn’t faze me. I wasn’t afraid of poking my nose into the dark.”

Wearing a trademark white cowboy hat, he began visiting Nashville nightclubs to meet country musicians.

“I’d go out four nights a week and stay one hour at a club, an hour at another and so forth until they closed. It was practice and a way to meet the musicians.”

A CBS Records executive spotted him singing at a nightclub and signed him to a recording contract.

But he has found that having a singing career on a major record label is more complex than he envisioned back in the hills. He now has a road manager, a business manager, a lawyer, an accountant, a publicity firm and a song publishing company.

“There’s so much you don’t know,” he said. “You think about playing, but you don’t think about the lawyers, the accountants and all the record company politics.

“There are no days off; you catch up on things on your days off. It’s tough but fulfilling on a daily basis. There is a lot of stress, going here and there and trying to be on time. You have to deal with so many people.

“Life is what you make it. You reap what you sow. Your dreams come true by a lot of hard work.”

In his traditional country music, he emphasizes the melodies rather than the lyrics. “The story doesn’t mean diddly squat. Music doesn’t have to make you think, just feel good.”

He’s adjusted to life in a bigger city, though he acknowledges, “I don’t like the traffic, the noise, the honking.”

There’s no doubt that music is now his career for life. Asked which of his old jobs he liked least, he says, “All of them.”