Mel Tillis Biography

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Mel Tillis
Country Music | 3 CD Set
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Mel Tillis turned the ill effects of a childhood speech impediment into a career trademark and along the way became a country music star. Born August 8, 1932, in Tampa, Florida, Tillis was three when a bout with malaria left him with a stutter that has remained with him throughout his life. The stutter was a problem for him through his childhood but he managed to deal with it until he became a singer and found that the stutter disappeared while singing. As a teenager, Tillis learned to play guitar and fiddle and also played drums in a band. He played football in high school. He joined the Air Force after high school and after his 1955 discharge, entered the University of Florida, dropping out after a short time. The odd jobs he worked at included berry picking and truck driving, but in his spare time he wrote songs and actually got one, "I’m Tired", recorded by country star, Webb Pierce. It became a big hit for Pierce and the royalties helped Tillis escape the strawberry patch. Realizing that the stutter went away when he sang, he began performing in 1956 and 1957. But the lack of original material put a crimp in his early career, so he decided to put more time in writing, eventually gaining a contract with Columbia Records and realizing his first chart success with "The Violet and the Rose," in 1958. Tillis also saw his songs become hits for others, including Pierce, Johnny and Jack, Ray Price and Carl Smith. In 1963, Bobby Bare had a major country and pop hit with "Detroit City," co-written with Danny Dill. He later helped establish the career of Charley Pride when the country singer recorded his song, "The Snakes Crawl At Night." Moving to Kapp Records in the mid ‘60s, he made both country and pop charts with "Life Turned Her That Way" (written by Harlan Howard) in 1967 and that same year saw Johnny Darrell nab a Top 10 country hit with his "Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town," the same song Kenny Rogers and the First Edition also made a major hit out of two years later. Tillis toured frequently with his band, the Statesiders (named after his 1966 hit "Stateside"), and continued his frantic pace through the ‘70s with more than 250 concert dates a year plus appearances on network television shows. The ‘70s were big years for Tillis as he recorded for MGM and MCA and saw 33 hits make the country charts, 24 of them in the Top 10 and five making No. 1. That success continued into the ‘80s, recording now for Electra but returning to MCA and later for RCA and Mercury. And he made duet sides during that time with Nancy Sinatra and Glen Campbell. Also in the ‘80s, his daughter, Pam Tillis, began a career as a songwriter but soon graduated to performer, launching a hit-making recording career in 1991. Tillis has appeared in several movies, including "W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings," "Smokey and the Bandit 2," "Murder in Music City" and in 1986 with Roy Clark in a comic western, "Uphill All The Way." He has also owned music publishing companies and became involved in other business opportunities along the way. He got involved in the cattle business almost by mistake when in the early ‘80s he was contracted to play what he was told was a limousine convention in Tulsa. However, it was for the exotic Limousin cattle, not big cars, and he became highly interested, buying his first bull, a 2,200 pound animal called Stutterin’ Boy. Tillis has won a number of music awards, including Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year in 1976, the same year he was inducted in the Nashville Songwriters International Hall of Fame. His stutter has never gone away and in fact has been a major part of his performing career. He frequently opens shows with "I’m here to d-d-dispel those rumors going round the M-M-Mel T-Tillis has quit st-st-stuttering. Not true. I’m still st-st-stuttering and making a pretty good living at it t-t-too."

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