There are some special artists who allow you to peek into their soul through their music. Billy Dean is one of those gifted performers. Audiences were immediately taken with the tall young man from Quincy, Florida, a little town outside of Tallahassee, nestled in the Florida panhandle. His gentle tones and melodic songs quickly launched him onto the country music charts; his charming, dimpled smile captivated the hearts of country music fans.

“My first performance was second grade, singing in front of the class. My first television appearance was when I was eight years old on the Jerry Lewis telethon,” Billy says. “Music was just a way of life. Both my mom and my dad had big families and that’s what we did for entertainment; we had family over and we played music. My dad played in a band for about twenty-eight years, he had a local band, and so I grew up around it singing with him.”

My dad’s band was called the Country Rocks and they did a little bit of contemporary country music at the time. They actually played a big, giant dance hall. They had a part where everybody got out in the middle and they had a big giant square dance right before their intermission. It was great. All through high school, music just became something I did in the community. I don’t even remember not knowing how to play a guitar; it’s just been a part of me.” Billy played basketball on a scholarship, but soon realized his path was leading him in another direction, “I’ve known I was going into music pretty much my whole life, mainly because that was about the only thing I could really do well. I wasn’t a great student. I played a little college basketball, but I knew I wasn’t going to have a long-term future in that.”

In 1982, Billy was playing the club circuit around the Gulf Coast and entered, and made the finals of the local Wrangler Country Star Search. By 1988, he was on Ed McMahon’s Star Search where he won the title of Male Vocalist Champ.

Billy’s career was on its way, but not before it faced a few bumps in the road, “When I was just stone-broke, I had no money, no nothing here in Nashville, but my very first single was moving up the charts. We were touring, but we weren’t able to book to our price and make any money, but we knew the money was coming. I did manage to get my first ever credit card. I was on tour with The Judd’s. I had been hanging out with Wynnona a lot; she and I are good buddies. She had always picked up the tab anytime we ever went out to eat, to drink some wine or have some fun. One night we were in probably the ritziest restaurant you could be in out in Pebble Beach, California. After about a three-hour dinner, I decided I was going to pick up the tab. I only had a thousand dollar limit on this credit card. It was $800 and the tip was $200 and it ate up my entire balance on my first-ever-corporate credit card. We had to borrow money from her to put fuel in the bus to get back home.”

After Billy hit the charts with ‘Only Here for a Little While’, song after song followed, and his career soared, as he was writing and singing his songs and even dabbling in television at times.

“I started writing songs when I was about fifteen years old and it kind of stuck with me through college. When I got to Nashville I realized it was just an essential part of your music career… it all starts with the song. It’s the songs that can make you or break you.

Music has really been the thing that has sustained me my whole life. I only dreamed that I could do it on this level, but a lot of perseverance and a lot of luck played into the picture. As a result, I’m still being able to make music today, especially with the Internet and the way music is distributed and marketed now, it really allows for someone like me to continue. Even though I’m not in the mainstream anymore, and I don’t really want to be. I kind of want to be on the fringe of mainstream with some of the music projects that I’m working on now. I’m not trying to compete with Rascal Flatts, Keith Urban and people like that, but my music has taken more of a path to singer/songwriter Americana country music,” he says.

Billy’s songs have stories of their own to tell, “I had the song ‘Let The m Be Little’ out in 2004. Richie McDonald, who was the former lead singer for Lonestar was a neighbor of mine. We both lived out in the country, in this really remote area. I ran into him at the convenience store; we’ve only got one or two little stores out there. I ran into him and he had started this song and he couldn’t finish it, he said, ‘Bill, I just don’t know where to go with it. Let’s finish it.’ We got together and we wrote the song. Lonestar recorded a version of it, and I recorded a version of it. Lonestar ended up putting it out on one of their albums, but it never did come out as a single. He called me up one day and said, ‘Hey, man, the song is yours. We are moving on to our next album and it doesn’t look like it’s going to come out as a single.’ So, I went ahead and released it and we had a hit with it. It ended up staying in the top 10 for 10 weeks. So it really had an impact.

We got so many wonderful emails about how parents use that song at graduations for their kids. That song has been a very special little tune. We get great stories about how the music has helped, or touched or changed somebody’s life.”

Impacting people in a positive way seems to be the foundation Billy has built his career on, “I’m very much afraid, in a lot of ways, of where our economy and where our country is headed. I’m a concerned citizen, American first. I hope, in a small way, the music I make, makes some type of contribution to people’s lives to be better husbands and better fathers and make a difference in small ways to communities. I’m a husband and a dad and an American and a recording artist, in that order. My number one job is to try to be a good husband and try to be a good dad. By doing that, it enriches my life and it affects the kind of work I do; it affects the kind of music I do. I’ve made so many mistakes in my life and I’ve been humbled. I’m very thankful, very grateful at this time in my life. Music is healing. To be a recording artist or a writer, for me it seems to be a noble job.”

Of his journey in the music industry, Billy says, “It was different than what I thought it might be. It’s a lot of work. It’s extremely long hours of touring and traveling, but it’s such an incredible opportunity and lifestyle to be able to see the world. I grew up in a really small town. We really didn’t have any money and I thought I was going to be stuck in my environment. I learned a lot about the business. Learning about retail and distribution andthings like this that most people wouldn’t be interested in. It’s given me a wonderful education. I didn’t finish college; I came to Nashville after just one year of playing basketball. Music has given me this unbelievable well-rounded education from traveling and from working in our industry. It has afforded me to, not only travel and see the United States, but it’s allowed me to go to different parts of the world. It’s a job that has a lot of benefits, but it does require perfectionism and it requires a high standard of work ethic.”

Using the tools the Internet provides has opened new doors for Billy and his career. He has cut an album called, ‘Billy Dean sings Richard Lee’ a tribute to the Grammy award winning author of songs like Don’t it Make Your Brown Eyes Blue and Billy’s co-writer on Somewhere In My Broken Heart.’ Billy says, “The kind of song that he writes fits my voice really well. They’re very melodic melodies and really simple, poignant lyrics. I gravitate towards these types of songs because they are crafted so well and they fit my voice so well. They have a great passion and romantic feel to them. It seems to be what I do the best. One of the songs that came off really special, especially coming from a male point of view, was The Greatest Man I Never Knew. There’s a whole generation that has never heard that song, it was recorded by Reba McEntire, and it came out about seventeen years ago. That’s our single, it landed on radio’s desk last week. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it continues to do well and hopefully climbs the charts.” For a limited time the album is being offered online at billydean.com, “. We wanted our fans, our loyal following to have access to the music. Eventually, it’ll come out at Walmart and possibly iTunes. That’s one of the things about having our own company; our fans are able to have first access to our music. We really want to create a great community online. I’m working on my Facebook. You can follow me on Facebook, it’s facebook.com/billydean.com (check to make sure) I do Twitter too, twitter.com/@billydeandotcom”

“My next goal really is to maybe continue to record great songs. I’d like to pay tribute to several of our songwriters who are here in Nashville who have written phenomenal songs and made lots of careers. There’s a lot of their music that doesn’t make it out on the radio. Or, maybe just recording some of my favorite songs that I haven’t written, songs that I am a fan of; I’m going to be doing some of that. My challenge for moving forward is setting up my own company, my own branding, and creating and distributing personally one on one to fans. Being more accessible, giving them more than just music, but videos, insight, access to shows and special events. Just connecting with the fans that I’ve never had the tools to do in the past. That’s what we’re dedicated to.”

“I love to hear from my fans. We have a street team, and we’d love to recruit some of your readers to the street team; I promise I won’t bombard them with emails, but if you go to weavernation.com/billydean you can join the street team, by doing this you get incredible cool things like backstage access to the Grand Ole Opry and you get first shot at getting our music, and a lot of free downloads. There’s a lot of benefits we like to give back to the fans for joining and in return we hope to have a street team out there that’ll help promote us in their local community when we come to play concerts. Also, so we can stay in touch with them, and let them know when we have music projects out. That would be my number one thing, come join our posse, and come join our team!”

Billy offers this advice to the new generation of songmakers trying to be heard, “It used to be that you had to come to Nashville, or New York, or Los Angeles in order to make it in the industry. Now, the best thing to do is get out and play live in any and every place you could possibly play, playing cover music or your own original music. It’s the same kind of formula we used growing up, and a lot of other people used, like Montgomery Gentry. If you can become a local celebrity, if you can get the attention of the local music scene, and get local fans, then you can get the attention of the Nashville scene. There are several blogs that I’ve posted on billydean.com that have to do with that very thing of how to go about taking different steps to make it in your local scene and how to market yourself and treat it like a business. If you do that, you can get the attention of the national scene, with youtube and myspace. You can distribute your own music. There’s a site called Tunecorp.com where people can distribute their own music on Amazon and iTunes. You can do it from your own backyard without having to pack yourself up and move to one of the music capitals.”

The longevity and quality of his career, have allowed Billy to enjoy life his way, while keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground. “I live on a lake outside of Nashville and growing up around the Gulf Coast, I like to get out on the water. We try to do a lot of boating, as much as possible. We water ski a lot in the summertime. I have a beautiful farm out in the country and we like to tinker around on the farm. We like to try and plant a garden every now and then. We can’t keep much alive, though, traveling as much as we do. I try to stay out in the country and on the water. Like an old buddy of mine, he was a forest ranger, said one time, ‘Ya know, Billy, cities, they were a good idea, but they just didn’t work,’” Billy relates, chuckling. “He was a 100% country boy, and that’s kind of the way I unwind, just by having a lot of peace and quiet, getting out of the city and staying in the country.” Billy has passed his love for music down to the next generation, performing with his daughter Hannah Dean at this year’s CMA fest, “She and I just wrote our first song a couple of weeks ago. Hannah is starting out early; she’s only fourteen.”

Luckily for country music lovers, Billy Dean feels strongly about the legacy of music he continues to share with the world, “It’s been my life and my livelihood, it’s been my contribution, I guess I could say. You want to leave something behind when you leave this earth, something worthwhile.”