Billy the Kid Makes a Splash
12-Year-Old Gilman Debuts at No. 4 on Billboard Chart
By Lisa Young
Billy Gilman takes the stage like a seasoned pro. Dressed in black jeans and
a white T-shirt, the 12-year-old doesn't seem to notice the steam rising from
the Wal-Mart parking lot where he's playing a free outdoor concert near
Nashville.
"How y'all doin'?" Gilman hollers in his best imitation of a
Southern accent before kicking into an uptempo number from his debut record,
One Voice.
The Rhode Island native gets an enthusiastic response from the 200 or so fans
who've gathered around the portable stage, eating ice cream sandwiches to
beat the heat. Most notable is the gaggle of pre-teen girls who line the
edge, staring intently as the pint-sized singer works the crowd. Inside the
store, several more wait for Gilman to sign autographs. Anna Robinson, an
attractive 15-year-old from Hendersonville, Tenn., admits waiting for two
hours to be the first in line.
"He's a cutie, man," she explains. "He's just so adorable,
and he can sing."
Gilman's appeal isn't limited to teenagers. Standing just behind
Robinson is Barbara Willard, a woman who drove more than an hour
from her home in Murfreesboro, Tenn., to secure Gilman's autograph
for her husband.
"My husband loves him," Willard says. "He thinks he's just
the greatest thing. My husband doesn't know where I'm at though. This is a
surprise. He's having surgery tomorrow, and I'm going to put in the tape on
our way home."
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| Billy Gilman works the crowd at a free Nashville
concert to promote his new album. | |
The single "One Voice" truly has struck a chord with
children and parents alike. The tune drove sales of Gilman's album,
One Voice, to 29,854 during its first week of release,
according to SoundScan figures. The record debuted at No. 4 on the
Billboard country album chart, and the song bumped Faith Hill
from the top spot on the Billboard country singles sales
chart. Gilman already has made appearances on the Rosie O'Donnell
Show, the Grand Ole Opry and the Academy of Country Music
Awards, where he received a standing ovation after performing
with Asleep at the Wheel. All of a sudden, it seems Billy Gilman is
everywhere.
"This is the biggest day of my life, 'cause I've always wanted to
conquer my dream and make an album to send to all the fans," Gilman
says in a phone interview from his home in Hope Valley, R.I., on June 20,
the day One Voice was released.
"That was a lot more than any of us expected," says Scott Siman,
Gilman's manager, about the first-week sales figures. "When we first
talked about launching Billy, had we sold 5,000 records we'd have been
really happy."
Though both Gilman and his record label were excited to see such a diverse
turnout for the Nashville Wal-Mart appearance, being away from home on the
occasion of your first record release isn't all it's cracked up to be.
| |  |
| | Buy "One Voice" Today! | |
"Believe it or not, one of the local record shops, called Strawberry's,
they're having a pizza party in regards to my album coming out," Gilman
explains. "I'll be gone. I'll be in the air. Doesn't that stink? All my
cousins are going, though."
Such is the dichotomy of Gilman. One minute the kid is working the
room like a veteran performer, the next he's talking about pizza
parties. That dual personality is clearly evident on his
debut record, which includes teenybopper fare like "I Think
She Likes Me" alongside adult themes like the
Tammy Wynette hit "'Til I Can Make It On My Own."
When asked how he can sing such mature material, Gilman says he was
exposed to the music of Wynette, George Jones and other traditional
country artists early by his parents and grandparents. And besides,
he's already had his own experiences with love.
"Oh yes, I've had a girlfriend," he says plainly. "So all
those songs pretty much fit my lifestyle."
And what does his mother think about her pre-teen son singing of kissing and
heartbreak?
"Ay, yi, yi," Gilman exclaims. "She goes, 'You're too
young!' I go, 'No I'm not. I'm almost 13, Mom, there's nothing wrong
with having a girlfriend.'"
Billy's mother says her son was "never really a kid." He grew
up outside Providence, in Hope Valley, which he describes as a
Mayberry-type town where "it's very quiet and nothing unusual
happens and nothing bad happens." It was there that a 3-year-old
Gilman first heard Pam Tillis sing on a TV special. From that moment
on he was hooked. He began singing for everyone, even for
show-and-tell at school. At 8 years old he began taking vocal
training from Angela Bacari, now his co-manager. Bacari gave his
tape to a friend, saxophone player and former Roomful of Blues member
Greg Piccolo, who passed it along to his friend, Asleep at the Wheel's
Ray Benson. Benson, a former child performer himself, was knocked out
by what he heard.
"He sings, well, not like an adult, he sings like Billy, but he sings
as well as an adult," Benson says. "That's something that doesn't
come along everyday." Go here for Benson/Gilman interview video clip.
Benson invited Gilman, who was then 10, down to his studio in Austin,
Texas, where the two cut a demo together. Later, on his tour bus at
a celebrity golf tournament, Benson played that demo for Siman, who
also manages Tim McGraw.
"There were three things that stood out immediately," Siman recalls.
"One, it was a great voice. Two, it was a young boy, and there has never
been a young boy in country music, at least to my knowledge. And three, I
thought it was a fascinating choice of song they played me, which was ''Til I
Can Make It On My Own.'"
After hearing the tape, Siman wanted to see Gilman perform, so Benson
arranged for his new protege to join the Wheel for a performance at
Nashville's Wildhorse Saloon. After seeing him live, Siman was
committed to finding the kid a record deal.
"The funny thing is, we were actually supposed to go up there [Rhode
Island] with the folks from Lyric Street to a concert to see Billy,"
Siman says. "They had a conflict at the last moment and had to cancel.
So, I called up [Epic Records'] Blake Chancey and said, 'Hey, do you want
to go to Rhode Island and play some golf this weekend?' I said, 'Let's go up
there and hear this kid, he's opening for Alabama, and we can hit some golf
balls around.'"
After that trip, Gilman was signed to Epic Records, which put him in
the studio with veteran producers David Malloy and Don Cook. The two
men wrote "One Voice" specifically for the project, which
has proven to be a good move. Radio jumped on the single, and the
buzz began growing about Gilman's talent.
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| Gilman with his younger brother Collin. | |
Because his career momentum is going full force, Gilman is no longer
attending public school like his younger brother, Collin. He is being
privately tutored and has just finished up work for the sixth grade. Despite
his busy lifestyle and preternatural poise onstage, the youngster insists he
is still just a kid. He likes to swim, rollerblade and hang out with his
friends when his hectic schedule allows.
"We call each other every now and then," he says. "Most of my
friends live just five minutes down the road, so they just ride their bikes
over and we have fun. I go to my brother's baseball games, and I'm signing
up for golf."
Unfortunately, those golf lessons recently caused him to postpone an
appearance on NBC's Today show and a few concert dates. A
stray golf ball hit Gilman in the mouth, knocking out his left front
tooth. Luckily, the dentist was able to reinsert the tooth, and
Gilman is doing fine. The doctor prescribed "popsicle
therapy" for his recovery.
When Gilman is out on the road, he mostly travels with one of his
managers. His mom stays home with his eight-year-old brother during
the school year and comes out with Billy in the summertime. His mother
says she's perfectly comfortable with Billy being chaperoned
by his managers because they treat him like one of their own kids.
"As a mom, I'm getting a lot of feedback like, 'How can you let this
happen? He's only 12 years old,'" she says. "I would
rather have it done this way so I can guide him, get him with the right
people, than to say 'No, we're not going to do this right now, Billy. You're
going to go to school and be a regular kid.' Say he gets mad or angry at 16
or 18 or whatever and says, 'You know, I've always wanted to do this. I'm
not going to school anymore. I'm going to Nashville.' You never know. I can
honestly say that when he's gone, I'm comfortable. I know I'm happy with who
he's dealing with. They're the kindest, nicest people."
Hall of Fame member Brenda Lee knows the scene all too well. She
herself was a child star, charting her first song in 1957 at the age
of 12. Ironically, Siman's father, Si Siman, was a booking agent and
music publisher who worked with Lee in the 1950s. Gilman recently
broke Lee's 43-year-old record as the youngest charting artist when
"One Voice" debuted on the Billboard country
singles chart in May (he was still 11 at the time).
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| | Anna Robinson scores an autograph after waiting in line for two hours. |
"Records are made to be broken, and, Good Lord, I held that one a long
time, so that's pretty darn good," Lee says. "I'm so happy for
him. He seems like he loves it, and you can't fake that."
Lee, whose youthful exuberance earned her the nickname "Little
Miss Dynamite," has been reflecting on her own show business
experiences for a book she's writing about her life. Not many people
have been in Gilman's shoes at such a young age, but Lee can speak
with the clarity of someone who has been there and lived to talk
about it.
"He certainly has the talent to do this, but it's awfully hard
when you're young like that," Lee says. "For one thing,
he'll be facing his voice changing. They'll just have to wait and
see how it's going to do. Another thing he'll be facing is working a
lot."
When asked, Lee offers some advice that she says it took her too
many years and a lot of grief to learn.
"I would tell him to learn how to say no," she says. "For
many years I went through that syndrome where I couldn't do it [say no], and
it jeopardized my health and my family life ... If you're having hit
records, you do have to get out there and do the dates while you're in
demand, but you also have to know there are other important things in life.
You have to pace yourself and your career."
Siman says pacing is just what they're doing with Gilman. The young
singer recently made a big splash at Fan Fair and on the George Strait
Music Festival, but instead of booking him on a major tour this summer,
he'll play only select dates. The plan will allow Gilman the time to
reach a broader audience through TV and radio appearances. Requests
have been pouring in.
"Sending him out on the road for three months would just be a bit too
much," Siman says. "He wants to, though. He wants to have a bus
and a band. He's ready to go. The artist is willing, but the manager is
hesitant. We've got plenty of time to be a road dog."
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| Gilman fans, many teenage girls, hang on his every move. | |
Gilman will, however, be back in the studio this month cutting a
Christmas album. It's a project the label and management wanted to
get in before Gilman hits puberty and faces a voice change.
"We have thought about that, and clearly that's one reason we want to
do a Christmas record," Siman says. "I think years from now we'd
look back and really regret it if we didn't take the opportunity to do that.
There's certainly not a race to see how many pieces of product we can get
before his voice changes or anything like that."
Gilman says he's thrilled about heading back to the studio, and he
already knows what the album will include.
"I think two of the songs are new," he says. "One is called
'Santa.com,' and the other one is called 'Mistletoe From Heaven.' But most
of them are like 'Silent Night,' 'O Holy Night' and I think I'm doing an
Italian song in it, too. How I'm going to learn that, who the heck knows?
"
To hear him tell it, Gilman is living his dream and loving it. The
performing is great, but he admits the travel "gets a little
boring when you're on a six-hour flight to Las Vegas or something.
" The exceptional youngster generally shrugs it off like a
veteran, but one who perhaps has seen a few too many Nike
commercials.
"When I know I have to do it, I just do it," he says. "There's
no buts about it, I just go."
