Only 11 years old when he notched his
first hit single,
Billy Gilman was the youngest performer ever to reach
the Billboard country charts, breaking a record held by
Brenda Lee since 1957.
Billy Gilman was born in Westerly, RI, on May 24, 1988, and
grew up in nearby Hope Valley. He was singing before he
started school, and developed rapidly enough to start
performing publicly at age seven. He was booked as an
opening act at several county fairs, including one with
headliner
Jo Dee Messina.
Billy Gilman caught his big break when
Asleep at the Wheel leader
Ray Benson heard him sing and was impressed by the
precocious power behind his vocals.
Benson had
Billy Gilman make a demo tape, which wound up landing the
young singer a deal with Epic.
Backed by seasoned Nashville studio pros,
Billy Gilman completed his debut album, One Voice, in 2000.
Its title song, a spiritual plea against school violence,
climbed into the Top 20 of the country charts, and the album
itself hit number two and quickly went gold. The follow-up
single, "Oklahoma," was also a Top 40 hit, and the holiday
album Classic Christmas was rushed out by the end of 2000;
it reached number four on the country charts, and featured a
duet with fellow vocal prodigy
Charlotte Church.
Billy Gilman's proper second album, Dare to Dream, appeared in
2001 and hit number six; it also spawned two minor chart
hits in "She's My Girl" and "Elisabeth," the latter a
sentimental ballad about a girl battling a terminal illness.
That theme became the basis for
Billy Gilman's third album when he met young poet and
best-selling author Mattie Stepanek -- a muscular dystrophy
sufferer -- during a TV appearance with Larry King.
Billy Gilman decided to record Stepanek's poems in song form,
and several Nashville pros were commissioned to set them to
music. The result, Music Through Heartsongs: Songs Based on
the Poems of Mattie T.J. Stepanek, was released in the
spring of 2003. Everything and More followed in 2005. ~
Steve Huey, All Music Guide
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