Billy Dean
Billy Dean ( born April 2, 1962 as William Harold Dean in Quincy, Florida) is an American country singer and songwriter, who in the 1990s had a series of Top 10 hits.
Billy Dean first played at the age of eight years in his father's band. As a teenager, he has performed in clubs in the Gulf Coast. Thanks to its excellent performance in basketball, he received a college scholarship. His real interest, however, was the music, and so he abandoned his studies after one year. A first important step in his career was in 1982 reaching the finals of a national talent competition.
Shortly afterwards, he moved to Nashville, where he stayed as a backup singer, songwriter and with the import of commercial jingles for several years struggle to survive. Then he found employment with a music publisher. 1988, winning the prestigious Star Search talent competition to a recording contract with the Liberty label. A year later, Randy Travis scored a hit with his song Somewhere In My Broken Heart.
Career
His first album, Young Man, was published in 1990. It contained several original compositions. Two uncoupled singles could be placed in the country Top 10. Somewhere In My Broken Heart was honored by the Academy of Country Music as song of the year. In addition, Billy Dean was named " Young Singer of the Year", and there was a Grammy nomination.
His second album, Billy Dean, appeared in 1991. Again several successful singles were released, including his famous song Billy The Kid. The album achieved high sales figures and was gilded. After this initial success, it was in the years to slightly downhill. Only a few more singles were able to place in the top 10. His albums performed much better. The published 1993 Fire In The Dark reached gold status as well as his Greatest Hits album.
In addition to his musical activities, he also worked as an actor and appeared in several television films. His last great hit came in 1996 with the song That Girl 's Been Spyin 'On Me, reached the place Five of the country charts. In 1999, he lost his recording contract. It took six years to the Curb label with Let Them Be Little grossed a new album in 2005. The title song made it after long years of absence, again in the top 10.