Artist Information
It’s been 35 years since Billy Dean released his 1990 debut album Young Man, and as the singer, songwriter, and musician will proudly tell you, he doesn’t have much in common with that title these days.
Dean has matured and evolved, and, along the way, refocused his attention on what he considers the most important part of his career: storytelling. After decades of industry success, including a pair of ACM Awards wins, a Grammy nomination, and eight Top 5 singles, he’s happily entered his American Troubadour era.
“I love the fact that I'm older,” Dean says. “The older you get, the better at storytelling you get. You have another layer of experience, another layer of life, and you see things in a different way. The songs I’m writing and recording now are some of the best I’ve ever done. I’m finally the all-around artist I want to be, and not just the guy on the album cover.”
But that guy on album covers like Young Man, Billy Dean, Fire in the Dark, and It’s What I Do, with the long flowing hair and matinee idol looks, was essential to Nineties country music. The smooth yet twangy sound that Dean contributed to then has been making a comeback, influencing today’s crop of country stars and reviving interest in the hit songs of the decade. For Dean, that includes radio staples like “Billy the Kid,” “Tryin’ to Hide a Fire in the Dark,” and “Somewhere in My Broken Heart,” which Dean wrote and Randy Travis recorded for his own album before Dean cut it for Young Man.
Each of those songs sums up the three sides of Billy Dean: The songwriter, the producer, and the entertainer. “The songwriter side of me loves to tell stories, and tell good stories. But I also love to sit in my home studio and create with programs and loops and try new things as a producer,” he says. “And the entertainer, well, he was the guy who got lumped in with the ‘hair act’ versus ‘hat act’ movement of the Nineties. But what I really was then was a musician.”
Born and raised in the north Florida town of Quincy, Dean saw only a few options for his future. He could become a farmer, a mechanic, or commit himself to some general type of blue-collar hard work in Quincy. But Dean also played guitar in a band with his father and was drawn to country music, even if he wasn’t fond of its songs about a hardscrabble existence. “It wasn't funny to me that our cars were up on blocks and we had holes in our socks. That was our real life,” he says, “and everything I was trying to run away from. Music and the support of my community is what eventually got me out.”
After a talent contest brought him to Nashville, Dean caught the ear of Capitol Records, who signed him to a deal. A string of albums and radio hits followed, along with tours with Alan Jackson, the Judds, Kenny Rogers, and Clint Black. But he eventually established himself as singer and songwriter more in line with James Taylor and Dan Fogelberg than Garth Brooks. The proof was in “Somewhere in My Broken Heart,” which earned Dean a Grammy nomination for Best Country Vocal Performance.
“I always loved pretty music and melody. Soft, cool music like the Eagles. ‘Somewhere in My Broken Heart’ was me trying to carve my own lane,” Dean says. “It told a story like country songs do, but its sound was appealing to people who lived in urban areas. At the time, I had more fans in Chicago and New York than I did in the South.”
Dean has been mixing melody with storytelling during his solo acoustic concerts, which touch on all 10 of his Top 10 singles, from “Only Here for a Little While” to “That Girl’s Been Spyin’ on Me,” and also preview some of his new material — like the metaphor for a life well-lived, “Handkerchief.” Behind the mic, he exudes the natural, easygoing charisma that he displayed as an actor opposite Dolly Parton in Blue Valley Songbird, and on numerous TV appearances from Lois & Clark to Wings.
“The live stage is where I thrive. You have everyone’s attention and, if you did your work on writing your lyric, you can see it land right in front of you,” Dean says. “I try to hit every little emotional button with the audience. We laugh, we shed a tear, and we get nostalgic.”
It’s also an opportunity for Dean to show off his most underappreciated talent: his guitar skills. A nimble finger-picker, his playing is every bit as dazzling as that of contemporaries Vince Gill and Steve Wariner, and evokes the sound and style of Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed.
While Dean, 62, is no longer the “young man” of his breakthrough album, he’s found himself returning to its title track of late, dissecting the lyrics he wrote when he was just 23. He’s been rewriting them for today and is rerecording not only the song, but the entire Young Man album, in a way that represents his one-man live show.
“I hope my shows and the new songs I’m recording allow people to get to know me as both a guitar player and a storyteller,” Dean says. “That’s how I’d like to grow old.”
Dean laughs. The American Troubadour still has a long way to go.
