Billy Ray Cyrus is an award-winning country music legend whose “Achy Breaky Heart” propelled his debut album, Some Gave All, to the top of the charts for a record-breaking seventeen weeks. He’s also father of Miley Cyrus, one of Hollywood’s most successful young stars, who grew up on stage and on screen, most famously as the lead on the Disney Channel’s “Hannah Montana,” where Billy Ray Cyrus played her father.

Cyrus comes to Live Talks Los Angeles to discuss his memoir, Hillbilly Heart, and share some acoustic music.

Hillbilly Heart opens during Cyrus’s turbulent childhood in Kentucky, where he sought refuge in music and sports after his parents’ divorce. He was a troublemaker in training, known more for pulling pranks than for following in his preacher grandfather’s much-vaunted footsteps. But when he heard a voice telling him to get a left-handed guitar and start a band, this rebel found his cause. Ten years later, after tirelessly working the club circuit and knocking on the closed doors of music executives from Nashville to Los Angeles, Cyrus finally made a stratospheric breakthrough, becoming a multi-platinum selling artist and taking his rock-and-roll twist on country music to the world’s stage.

In addition to being a multi-platinum selling recording artist — whose debut album is the best-selling debut of all time for a solo male artist — he is an accomplished actor, a man of faith, a baseball sensation, a family man, a philanthropist, and a Broadway star.

Years later, Cyrus watched as his daughter Miley followed in his footsteps through her hit Disney show Hannah Montana. The success of the show brought adventures and disappointments for his family that fans have been able to decipher in his lyrics and seen play out in the press. He says his faith, family and music have helped him through his ups and downs and he candidly shares his story in his memoir.

Cyrus recently released his thirteenth studio album entitled Change My Mind and the single Hillbilly Heart releases this spring.

Sam Rubin is the entertainment reporter for the KTLA Morning News. His insights and exploration of the deeper meaning and impact of the stories within the entertainment industry generate conversation within the business, as well as outside it.

Rubin hosts the Emmy-nominated “Live from the Academy Awards,” syndicated nationally by Tribune Entertainment, “Sneaks,” a series of movie preview shows produced in conjunction with the Los Angeles Times, as well as a show for the Reelz Channel.  He is a recipient of a Golden Mike Award for Best Entertainment Reporter from the Radio & Television News Association and, as part of the KTLA Morning News team, earned an Associated Press Television-Radio Award for Best News Broadcast.

In addition to his activities at KTLA, he also reports for Tribune’s WGN-TV in Chicago. Nationally, Rubin provides reports for “On Air With Ryan Seacrest,” “Show Buzz,” and CNN. On the radio, Rubin reports for Los Angeles’ KNX-AM. Rubin was last at Live Talks Los Angeles interviewing Garry Marshall. See the video.