Billy Gilman-The Comback Kid
By Elisabeth Deffner
“Dream big,” Billy urges. “If you have dreams, go for them.”
What would you do if there was something preventing you from participating in your favorite activity—and you couldn’t be sure when or if you’d be able to participate in that activity again?
For singer Billy Gilman, the answer was straightforward. When a doctor at a voice clinic advised him not to speak or sing until his voice stopped changing, he did just that. He tried to speak as little as possible, and he told his agent he couldn’t take on any more bookings.
It was the only decision he could logically make. But it wasn’t an easy one, says Billy, now 18.
“I was a wreck,” recalls the Rhode Island native. “It was tough. People would speculate, and they would assume, ‘He’s wrecked his voice.’ There were headlines all over the place. But I didn’t wreck it! It was just growing.”
Worst of all, Billy felt stuck. His life had been moving along in the direction he’d always wanted to go and now he didn’t know what he was going to do.
The Road to Stardom
When Billy was 3 years old he watched a television special celebrating the anniversary of Sea World, an amusement park in southern California. His mother figured the toddler would enjoy watching the dolphins and whales, but Billy’s attention was caught by something completely different: country singer Pam Tillis, who performed on the show.
“Forget the whales,” he says with a laugh. “I was listening to her.”
His family had taped the special, and when it was over Billy rewound the tape to listen to Pam Tillis’s performance again. “By the time I’d listened to it twice I had the song down pat,” he says. “I looked at my family and said, ‘I’m going to sing with her one day.’”
He’d always been surrounded by classic country music, listening to records by Eddie Arnold and Patsy Cline. So that was the kind of music he gravitated toward singing. Billy started performing at school and church events, and by the time he was 8, his grandmother suggested taking him to a vocal coach for more intensive training. That was when Billy met Angela Bacari, who is his manager and still coaches him vocally.
“I fell over on my couch,” she recalls with a chuckle. “He was just so incredibly talented . . . and had passion unending for his singing.”
Billy attended the local school up to sixth grade and did most of his performances on the weekends. His first album, One Voice, was released when he was 11 years old. His schedule was soon so filled with performing that he had to leave public school in favor of private tutoring. “I was just loving every minute of it,” he says. “I wanted this to be my life.”
So when the doctors told him that that life was over—perhaps temporarily—he didn’t know what to do. “I thought, It can’t happen to me—there’s too much on the line,” he says.
But it did happen to him. And for three years Billy Gilman’s singing career was over.
The Road Back
 Billy continued to live in the public eye, though. At age 15, the Muscular Dystrophy Association invited him to be its youth chairman. He has traveled around the country speaking on behalf of the MDA, urging young people to get involved in this organization that raises awareness of, and funds for, research into neuromuscular disorders. “He’s never tired when it comes to MDA, no matter what,” says his manager. “He says, ‘I never want to get old enough not to be their youth chairman.’”
“It’s an unbelievable opportunity to do that and to meet all these kids and adults that suffer with these diseases,” says Billy. “You really realize, hey, your life is pretty good.”
That was an important message for him to remember during those difficult years when he couldn’t sing. Then, in early 2005, he made an exciting discovery.
“I woke up and it was like a switch turned on,” he says. “[My voice] was so strong, and it wasn’t hoarse.”
He immediately called his manager and went over to see her. They ran through some vocal exercises and realized that yes, Billy’s voice was back—but it was different. “I lost some high notes and gained a lot of low notes,” he says with a chuckle.
“The relief, the stress, the worry, was off my shoulders. Now there’s a future again. Now we’re in the process of building back up to where we’ve left off.” In September he released a new album, Billy Gilman.
The ability to sing again is a relief in more ways than one. “I knew that my voice was my purpose,” he says. “I know I’m meant to sing—to what capacity I don’t know yet—but that is what I was put on this earth to do. That’s what I feel.”
When he couldn’t sing anymore, he didn’t just lose an activity he enjoyed—he lost his purpose in life. And so he started thinking about what else he might like to do. He’d been so focused on singing for so long it was hard to imagine there might be another career path for him to follow. Eventually he did develop a “Plan B,” though. If his singing career falters, Billy plans to go to culinary school.
Most kids don’t choose their future career at the age of 3! So what do you do if you aren’t sure what your talents or interests are? “Dream big,” Billy urges. “If you have dreams, go for them. When you find your path, just go for it, whatever profession it may be.”
And, most important, make sure you stay true to those dreams and don’t get distracted by dangerous activities that can turn your life upside down. For Billy, who has the support of his parents, grandparents, and manager, it has been easy to say no to drugs, alcohol, and tobacco—even though in his line of work those substances are always readily available.
“It’s so accessible, you don’t even have to ask. It’s just there,” he says. “It is not the answer. There’s so much more to live for than to get caught up in that.” |
