About Billy Gilman
William Wendell Gilman III , known professionally as Billy Gilman, is an American country music singer. Starting as a young country artist, he is known for his debut single "One Voice", a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and a top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 2000. He has released five albums, including three for Epic Nashville. In 2016, Gilman auditioned for season 11 of the US edition of The Voice and competed as part of Team Adam Levine, finishing as runner-up for the season.
William Wendell Gilman was born on May 24, 1988, in Westerly, Rhode Island. He was raised in Hope Valley, Rhode Island, in the town of Richmond. He is the son of Frances "Fran" and William Wendell "Bill" Gilman, Jr., who works in maintenance. Gilman began singing before he was in school, and gave his first public performance at the age of seven. At the age of nine, Gilman was discovered by Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel, who helped him record demos. Gilman was then signed to Epic Records Nashville in 2000.
Gilman's debut single "One Voice", became a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at number 38. It also became a top 20 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 2000. 11 years old at the time, he became the youngest artist to ever have a top 40 single on the country chart.
His debut album, also called One Voice was released on June 20, 2000, on Epic Records, and was certified double platinum in the United States. The album included the title track "One Voice" and the follow-up singles "Oklahoma" and "There's a Hero". The single "Oklahoma" was released on October 9, 2000, making it to the Billboard Hot Country Songs top 40 peaking at number 33. It also cracked the main Hot 100 chart peaking at number 63.
Gilman was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for his debut single "One Voice" and was nominated for Best Country Song for the songwriters, Don Cook and David Malloy.
Gilman released a Christmas album in 2000 titled Classic Christmas which went gold, followed on May 8, 2001, by his second album Dare to Dream, which was certified gold, although its singles "Elisabeth" and "She's My Girl" both fell short of top 40 on the Billboard country singles charts peaking at numbers 50 and 56 respectively. After Dare to Dream, Gilman's voice began to noticeably change because of the onset of puberty, forcing him temporarily to withdraw from singing.
His final album for Epic was released on April 15, 2003, and was entitled Music Through Heartsongs: Songs Based on the Poems of Mattie J.T. Stepanek. The tracks were based on poems written by the child poet Mattie Stepanek, a poet with muscular dystrophy who died in 2004, almost one year after the album's release.
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