Joe Scaife, hit producer of 'Achy Breaky Heart' and 'Redneck Woman,' dies at 68

It feels appropriate that a lineage exists between legendary Nashville record producer Cecil Scaife and his son Joe that is as long as the commercial history of country music.

Joe Scaife, an Arkansas-born producer renowned for a quarter century of mainstream country hits like K.T. Oslin's "80s Ladies," Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart" and Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" and "Here for the Party," died on June 12 at the age of 68.

His ability to pair mainstream undiscovered acts with unmistakable hit songs defined his career best.

That skill was honed by the influence of his father's early career working for Sam Phillips at Memphis' Sun Records in the era when the Million Dollar Quartet of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Sam Perkins were breaking ground in rock 'n' roll through a countrified lens.

Humble roots

While his father was spearheading Phillips' forays into Nashville, working at Columbia as acts like Bob Dylan ushered pop-ready folk into Music City, becoming a leading publisher of everything from Elvis' Christmas albums to Christian music and, yes, the Chipmunks, Joe Scaife attended Belmont University in Nashville and working at his father's Hall of Fame Recording Studio.

Via his son's attendance at Belmont, that connection developed into the beginnings of the school's Music Business Program, which evolved into the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business. Today, the Scaife family's involvement in Curb's program includes the Cecil Scaife Endowed Scholarship, started by Joe Scaife and his sister, LaRawn Scaife Rhea, which helps students financially to continue their education.

During that era, Scaife took great pride in two moments. Foremost, he contributed to both the historic recording of the last official Grand Ole Opry show at the Ryman Auditorium and the first Grand Ole Opry show the next night at the new Opry House at Opryland. Then-President Richard Nixon was in attendance and performed on the piano.

By his mid-20s, he also recalled being at the soundboard when Vince Gill arrived in Nashville and recording the eventual Country Music Hall of Famer and Grand Ole Opry member's first demo.

Joe Scaife's career frequently saw him work alongside executive Harold Shedd, primarily based out of Music Row's Music Mill Recording Studio (now the home of Nashville Songwriters Association International). His work dovetailed with how that studio served as the home base for Shedd's progressive-minded and superstar-making work with acts such as Alabama, Toby Keith, Shania Twain and more.

'80s Ladies'

Working with "80s Ladies" was a brilliant showcase of Scaife's skill set.

Oslin, like Scaife, was an Arkansas native searching for the right avenue to push her creative boundaries.

For 20 years, she'd worked in New York as a Broadway vocalist and jingle singer for television commercials. Nashville arrived as a fourth career option (after failing in an early attempt at Music City in the 1970s). In a Chicago Tribune article, RCA's Joe Galante stated that he thought her a "self-assured, yet vulnerable woman who was (still) feeling her oats."

Locking in with Scaife yielded a "good sounding, modern arrangement" of a song she believed to be a concert-ready B-side about being an "educated," "liberated" and, finally, "un-complicated" modern woman capable of burning bras, dinners and their "candles at both ends."

Journalists Mary Bufwack and Robert K. Oermann called it "the anthem of a generation." Rolling Stone listed the 1988 Country Music Association Song of the Year as one of the 200 best country songs ever.

'Achy Breaky Heart'

Billy Ray Cyrus was a former collegiate baseball-playing rocker and actor freshly back south from Los Angeles. Focusing his career beyond feeling like a myriad of Nashville mainstream tropes to being an artist with a top single, completed album and uniquely prepared for stardom arrives with Scaife's assistance.

His 1992 hit "Achy Breaky Heart" had lived multiple lifetimes in the Music Mill before being cut by Cyrus.

Don Von Tress had befriended Russ Zavitson, a producer and songwriter running Harold Shedd's Music Mill-based publishing company.

It was initially sent to the Oak Ridge Boys, but lead singer Duane Allen didn't like the term "achy breaky." A year later, the Marcy Brothers cut the song as "Don't Tell My Heart" but changed more of the lyrics.

Keenly aware of Kentuckian Cyrus' appeal, Scaife played him Von Tress' swamp-rock-styled demo.

"Billy heard the record and said, 'That's me. That's mine. That's my song,' Von Tress told The Tennessean in 2019.

"Achy Breaky Heart" blends "down-home vocal twang, foot-tapping boogie guitar licks and has no trouble walking the line between Southern rock and Nashville sentimentality," said The Baltimore Sun's J.D. Considine.

The song, Parry Gettelman from the Orlando Sentinel added, "has a catchy melody but the kind you wish were a lot less catchy. It sticks in your mind like a commercial jingle. The song also is annoyingly full of arch puns."

"Achy Breaky Heart" was a platinum-selling, global No. 1 hit. Notably, it's a debut single that spent as much time on top of Billboard's Country charts as two other debuts: "Skip a Rope" by Henson Cargill and "Austin" by Blake Shelton.

'Redneck Woman' and 'Here for the Party'

By the early 2000s, Scaife was no longer affiliated with Shedd and was working alongside fellow Arkansas-native Mark Wright, who was fresh off a Grammy nomination for co-producing Lee Ann Womack's "I Hope You Dance" album.

Gretchen Wilson was another Arkansas native who, at the time, was a Printer's Alley bartender and aspiring singer-songwriter affiliated with Big and Rich's MuzikMafia crew.

As MuzikMafia's renown grew, Wilson signed to Epic Records in 2003 and worked with Wright, Scaife and John Rich on songs that included "Redneck Woman" and "Here for the Party."

Like "Achy Breaky Heart" a decade prior, those songs yielded a pair of iconic swampy, rocking country classics.

"Redneck Woman" was the first song Heart-loving rock aficionado Wilson sang for Wright when he became the executive vice president of A&R for Sony Music Nashville. Wilson was signed immediately because, as the Nashville Scene noted, "('Redneck Woman' plumbed) the gritty realities of life for the legions of game but harried women who struggle with work and family in the trailer parks and taverns of redneck country."

For Scaife's skill set, the task of achieving a hit for "Redneck Woman" was similar to the work he'd done for "80s Ladies" 25 years prior.

A year later, Wilson was an Academy of Country Music-, Country Music Association- and Grammy-winning performer responsible for selling 5 million albums.

His legacy

Scaife was responsible for selling over 80 million records as a producer, engineer and singer. His songs have been streamed over 2 billion times. He is also an ACM-, ASCAP-, BMI-, CMA- and Grammy-honored producer. As a music publisher, most recently working with Nashville's Little Extra Music, his catalog of songs includes Luke Combs' 2017 chart-topper "She Got the Best of Me."

Scaife is survived by his wife, Danielle Godwin Scaife, and their two children, his son, Joe Tristan Payne Scaife, and Jaela Scaife Harris (Prather), of Franklin, alongside many other family members and friends.

A celebration of Scaife's life will be held on Music Row at a later date.

The Cecil Scaife Endowed Scholarship at Belmont University was dear to Joe for those who wish to send a memorial in his name. P.O. Box 128079, Nashville, TN 37212.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Joe Scaife, Nashville producer of 'Achy Breaky Heart,' dies at 68.