ExploreFrom 2024: Carrie Underwood takes over for Katy Perry as an ‘American Idol’ judge
Baylee said his family gave him a “blessed childhood. We got some land in north Georgia. I got to grow up as an outdoorsy kid. We have a pond behind the house where I fished. I played baseball and basketball.”
He didn’t make it readily apparent he could sing until 2009 when he was 6 years old and Michael Jackson died. “I was shocked and kind of sad,” he recalled. “I grew up with the Temptations and Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and Jackson 5. That was really my grandparents. My dad grew up with gospel and R&B. I walked into the kitchen and sang ‘I Want You Back.’”
He said his parents were astonished. A few years later, he landed a job on Broadway on a short-lived musical “Disaster!” which mocked 1970s era disaster movies.
“I played a boy and a girl twin who would sing duets with myself,” Baylee recalled. “It was really funny. They called me Ben, like the Michael Jackson song, and Lisa. I sang two octaves.”
He was 13 at the time and his voice changed near the end of the musical’s run. “If the show had run another month,” he said, “I would have sounded completely different. It ended just in time!”
The experience made him homesick and he decided to come back to Atlanta. At age 15, he began pursuing country music, landed a record contract at age 16 and released the album “770-Country” in 2019. He got to work with top-notch Nashville songwriters and performers like Tyler Hubbard and Gary Baker.
He also opened for his dad’s group. “I got to play arenas at 16,” Baylee said. “It was the coolest experience a teenager could get. It was amazing. I also got to tour with Chris Lane.” But the album didn’t generate enough traction and he was soon back to playing bars for a handful of people.
By the time the pandemic arrived, he had lost his record deal. He resisted TikTok, a popular avenue in the early 2020s to gain traction. “I was stubborn,” he said. “I’m still stubborn.”
Baylee said he’s edging away from country and is instead focused more in the singer-songwriter lane, which he will display on “Idol.”
“I came into the audition very nervous and excited,” he said, with Carrie Underwood as one of the new judges joining Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan. “It was a childhood dream for me to meet Carrie and Lionel and Luke. Love them all.”
Baylee remains close to his family and has no plans to leave Atlanta no matter where his “Idol” exposure takes him.
“We still have the same patch of land,” he said. “My grandparents are on the hill. My house is off in the woods, an old historical home built in 1906. My parents are two football fields away from me. It’s a perfect little Littrell compound.”
“American Idol”
8 p.m. Sundays on ABC and available the next day on Hulu.
