Big-time Billy
R.I.'s Gilman set to embark on
second stage of career at age 13
BY VAUGHN WATSON
Journal Pop Music Writer
Hope Valley's Billy Gilman turns 14 in May. He's a teenager who loves to ride the all-terrain vehicle he got as a Christmas present.
But he's also a country-music star with a busy schedule.
Gilman sings tomorrow at University of Rhode Island's Keaney Gym, following the women's basketball game. Then he heads to concerts in New York state, Salt Lake City, Indiana, Nevada and California. Gilman is also working on a new album, planned for a late-summer or fall release.
"We're not going to travel as much as this year, because we're concentrating on the album," Gilman said on Wednesday in a conference-call interview with Angela Bacari, his personal manager. "We're going to make it perfect this time."
Gilman eclipsed Brenda Lee as the youngest artist ever to land on Billboard's country music charts with his debut,
One Voice,
in June 2000, just after his 12th birthday.
One Voice
sold more than a 1.5 million albums in its first three months, and its total sales are more than two million.
Just 11 months after
One Voice
's release, Gilman released its studio follow-up,
Dare To Dream.
The album's jewel was
Elisabeth,
a stirring country-pop ballad in the
One Voice
style.
Instead Sony released a perky uptempo song,
She's My Girl,
as the first single, to appease radio's appetite for variety.
She's My Girl
did not catch fire the way
One Voice had, and though
Dare To Dream
to went gold -- selling more than 500,000 albums -- it was a commercial step back.
"
Elisabeth
should have been a huge hit. I don't know how radio didn't pick it up," Bacari said. "Sony Nashville is unbelievably strong in support of Billy. What they did is try to please radio. . . . That's why they went uptempo."
Gilman adds: "The whole record was nothing but for radio. It was like a rude awakening. Now we know we can't do that again, because they're not going to accept you. My true honest opinion is that whole album was rushed -- don't get me wrong, there are beautiful songs on it."
"Let me explain what happened," Bacari added. "An 11- , 12-year-old boy -- you know his voice is going to change. They are trying to get the most music out there as they can."
Taking control
On the phone -- as in person -- Gilman is gregarious, a professional seasoned with a national tour and two Grammy nominations for
One Voice.
He's met President Bush and former President Clinton. He sang with a personal invite from the King of Pop on the
Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special
on CBS-TV.
Now he wants to take the next step, making decisions behind the scenes; he and Bacari will taking an active role in the direction of the new album. And that may move him away from strict country.
Gilman said that when he travels on his tour bus, "I find myself singing" -- and here he breaks out in song -- "There's no business like show business.
"I'll sing Broadway and Earth, Wind & Fire. That's what we're going to do in this new album. They're going to hear all different styles. Try to position yourself into an album like Earth, Wind & Fire horns, George Michael and Michael Bolton vocal parts, songs like Celine Dion."
He adds with a laugh: "with powerful production up the wazoo."
Gilman said the move to diversify was made easier, "because country has basically said goodbye. CMT (Country Music Television) is not playing me anymore. Country radio is not anymore. What can you do when you're in country music and you're not getting those two things?"
Going universal
Sony Records, which before
One Voice
signed Gilman to a five-album deal, supports Gilman's evolving sound, Bacari said.
The next album will include producers in Nashville, the country music heartland, and also in New York -- the epicenter for pop culture.
"Billy has such a universal audience," Bacari said. "We've decided now, talked it over with the record label, to get a really great CD together with all the different people, so everybody is happy -- including Billy."
She said Gilman "in the last year and a half wanted to open it up more. He didn't want to be typecast as one kind of singer because he's not. Everything worked for the best."
Gilman's performance of Michael Jackson's
Ben
on the CBS special, and of Roy Orbison's
Cryin' last August at the Washington County Fair, certainly indicated Gilman can sing more than country.
Bacari said
Cryin'
is expected to be the album's first single -- "his next hit."
Gilman said when Bacari first brought the song to him, "I told her
Cryin'
is too old for me, way out of my range. I literally refused to do it. She said try it." Gilman did. Now it's a concert favorite.
"I said, 'Angela, that's the best song I've ever done.' " Gilman said. "You've just got to listen to people, to their ideas."
Voice is in shape
As for Gilman's voice, he had a recent cold that settled in his nose and chest. He visited a doctor on Wednesday to make sure his vocal cords were not swollen or aggravated.
"They say it's great," Gilman said. "I'll be in shape" for tomorrow's concert.
His voice is also "starting to change a little bit," Bacari said. "The doctors told me today that if he keeps doing exercises like I am telling him and showing him, he should be okay."
Gilman's appeal, despite the less-enthusiastic response for
Dare To Dream,
remains intact. During a recent Internet chat he got 600,000 hits from fans from Malaysia to Hong Kong in half an hour, Bacari said. He's been offered movie and sitcom roles, she added.
But for now Gilman is concentrating on the next album.
"Last year there was a lot of pressure on us," Bacari said. "Sony felt it. We felt it. Now we say to everybody, wait. Let us really develop it.
"
One Voice
carried us all these years. Now we have to come back with a blockbuster," she said. "He was only 10 when he started. He's going to grow and search for his niche. The fans want to hear him belt out a song. And we're going to give it to them."
Concert tickets
for the URI performance, which include game admission, are $25 for adults and $15 for children under 13. The game starts at 2 p.m.
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