Digital Extras

8.19.2001
Gilman wows 'em at county fair
• Showing no shortage of poise or promise, the 13-year-old star puts on a heartfelt and professional show at the Washington County Fair.

By VAUGHN WATSON
Journal Pop Music Writer

RICHMOND — It was appropriate that the backdrop for Billy Gilman's first Rhode Island performance with a full touring band was the Washington County Fair.

At the agricultural fair in this rural edge of the state where Gilman, 13, of Hope Valley, grew up, tractors arrive for pull competitions, and kids and their moms wear cowboy hats out of habit, not to make fashion statements. The fair shares an agricultural theme with the annual Swamp Yankee Days in Ashaway — where in 1998 a then-unsigned Gilman sang for the crowd.

The events connect Rhode Island to a New England landscape of labor and culture, and to similar histories in America's West and South, where workers lamented the long day with music, and especially roots-based country music.

Last summer, Gilman sang his hit "One Voice" before 15,000 fans in Nashville at Fan Fair, a multiday outdoor concert set against a grand platform of regional pride and country music. Gilman wore cowboy boots for the show, then signed autographs near an exhibit dedicated to NASCAR, rural America's popular sport.

Yesterday, cars in the Washington County Fair parking lot bore bumper stickers for NASCAR and for the local fair, a festival for a region outside of Nashville where county music, in small pockets, still thrives.

Carl Gough arrived with friends and family at 9 a.m. They carried a handmade poster that said, "We love you Billy in Coventry, R.I."

"I think he's great," said Gough, a student at Coventry High School who was seeing Gilman for the first time. "We need more people from the local area becoming famous."

"It's so great to be back now," Gilman said from the stage. "Fall River [where Gilman recently performed] — that's in Massachusetts. This is Rhode Island. It's great to see old faces and hopefully some new ones."

Gilman's star rose last year as his debut One Voice (released last May) sold more than 2 million albums, and it settled with the release of his follow-up Dare To Dream.

Now with a summer tour and the upcoming release of Dare To Dream's second single, "Elizabeth," Gilman is reemerging as a star of the Nashville's polished sound.

The circle of popularity around him transcends boundaries. Michael Jackson, the archetype for popular culture's tendency to repackage a trend, is a fan: Jackson handpicked Gilman to sing next month in a benefit concert to Jackson at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Gilman has fans closer to home, too. They talked in one-word answers, their enthusiasm sharp and pointed. When asked if she were psyched about the show, Amanda Manville, 10, said: "Yeah!"

She and a few friends, Kelsey and Brittany, stood lookout for Gilman's emergence from his big red tour bus. They were separated by a chain-link fence from the bus, easy to spot with "B.G." stenciled near the door. Whenever Gilman left the trailer, framed by his mother, Fran, and his manager, Angela Bacari, a growing crowd of bus watchers shrieked and clapped.

Gilman hit the stage with a full band. The instrumentation on his albums is inarguably similar. So the attraction is Gilman, a young singer with a towering voice and stage presence. He has moved from gyrating his hips as the opening act at Swamp Yankee Days to singing a polished "One Voice" at Fan Fair to, yesterday, charging through a set of country-blues, passable teen pop and heartfelt ballads.

"The first time I heard him was two years ago" on the radio, said Anthony Orsini, of Norwich, Conn., a "fiftysomething" fan wearing a Yankees' cap. "I couldn't believe his voice. I had to call the station to see who it was. I've been following him ever since."

Gilman has developed with seasoned professionalism. He grabbed a stool to sit and deliver the ballads, stood and tapped a foot to keep the rhythm on up-tempo songs. He even signaled slight changes to the band.

If the on- and off-stage direction and a heady sense of polish were taught to him, enthusiastic showmanship and earnest singing — Gilman's voice is maturing in range and strength — come as natural gifts.

The best songs, "Elisabeth" and "One Voice," were encouraging ballads sung with the youthful optimism that Gilman makes his most marketable cachet.

His voice is foreshadowing a new sound — a soulful tension in "Little Bitty Pretty One" that goes back to a time before country, roots, and gospel singers parted paths.

Gilman sang the first lines of Roy Orbison's "Crying" unaccompanied, and in that graceful moment of independence he outgrew his country-pop stature.

He worked over the crowd like a dinner party's consummate host, a sense of comfort that smoothed the rough edges left by the listless traditional-country "Don't Worry About Me" and frivolous "Rockin' Robin." More appealing offerings included gently rebellious rousing ("On your feet," Gilman said before "She's My Girl.") and sophisticated concern: "No matter what obstacles there are in your life," Gilman said before "There's A Hero," "always believe that you can overcome them."

Gilman seared the traditions of country to pop with his encore, Huey Lewis's "Heart of Rock & Roll"; playful and accomplished pop unconcerned with categorization.

About 8,000 people attended the fair by the start of the 2 p.m. concert; a second show was scheduled for last night. The set list for the early show was: "Little Bitty Pretty One," "She's Everything You Want," "Oklahoma," "Elizabeth," "I Wanna Get to Ya," "She's My Girl," "Our First Kiss," "Don't Worry About Me," "There's A Hero," "You Don't You Want," "Crying," "Rockin' Robin," "ABC," "One Voice," (encore) "Heart of Rock & Roll."