Remembering How Mel Tillis Overcame Stuttering To Be A Country Music Star
BRANSON MO NEWS: One of Nashville’s most prolific hit-makers died Sunday. Mel Tillis spent the last year dealing with intestinal issues, according to his publicist. He died at a hospital in Ocala, Florida, at age 85. Tillis, a Country Music Hall of Famer, wrote more songs than he could count. Hundreds were recorded, many of them Top 10 country hits. He, himself, is remembered as a smooth singer and a natural entertainer, but that required overcoming a disability that generally discourages people from a career on the stage. Tillis had a speech impediment that dated back to his childhood. “I stuttered so bad, and I couldn’t hardly talk at all in those days, but I could sing,” he told an interviewer from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2012. “Your singing and your creative ability comes from one side of your brain and your speech from another side.” “If they laugh at you, give them something to laugh about.” Tillis learned to deal with his stutter in rural Florida, where he grew up. He said his dad and brother stuttered too. So he didn’t realize he had a problem until his first day of school. “I came home that afternoon and said, ‘Mom, do I stutter?’ And she said, ‘Yes you do, son.’ And I said, ‘Momma, they laughed at me in school.’ And she said, ‘Well if they laugh at you, give them something to laugh about.’ And I went back to school the next day, and that was my first day in show biz,” he said. Tillis learned to lean in to the teasing. He’d do skits about a stuttering auctioneer on the “Glen Campbell Good Time Hour,” or a little standup routine for a “Statler Brothers” special.
“She said, ‘How come you stutter and you can sing and …
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