User:Msthrw19/Will Hedgecock

Will Hedgecock (born September 25, 1985) is a pop/adult contemporary singer and recording artist.

Early Life
Will Hedgecock was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida to Emily and Ron Hedgecock, both electricians. He started out taking piano lessons in Kindergarten and joined the Pensacola Children's Chorus at the age of 9. He performed with this group for ten years, touring throughout the U.S., England, France, Canada, and Mexico, with performances at such locations as the Crystal Cathedral and the White House.

He graduated from Pensacola High School's rigorous International Baccalaureate (IB) Program as one of the top 5 in his class and earned the distinction of "National Merit Scholar" in the National Merit Scholarship Program. Additionally, he earned the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America and the level of Black Belt in the American Taekwondo Association (ATA), before accepting entrance into Vanderbilt University's Computer Engineering program.

Discovery
Hedgecock was first discovered by music industry veteran and two-time Grammy award-winning producer Larry Butler during a Pensacola Children's Chorus production at the age of 17. Butler immediately took Hedgecock to a local studio to test his voice out on a version of Roy Orbison's Crying. This led to the pair traveling to Nashville, Tennessee to record a full 10-song demo album of Orbison tunes to present to record companies.

During this time, Hedgecock met Brad Paisley's erstwhile manager Jimmy Gilmer (singer of Sugar Shack by "Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs"), who agreed to manage him and help him along his musical career path.

Early on, Hedgecock was approached by the Las Vegas "Legends In Concert" management with an offer to work as the current Roy Orbison impersonator in the show. After much debate, however, he decided to decline the offer and instead focus on his career as a recording artist and on his studies at Vanderbilt University.

2005-2006: A Night with Will Hedgecock
During his freshman year of college, much of Northwest Florida, including his hometown, suffered severe destruction at the hands of Hurricane Ivan. Upon returning home for the summer, Hedgecock arranged a relief concert to be held in August of that year, benefiting Rebuild Northwest Florida, an organization which provided assistance to displaced hurricane victims. The event featured Nashville and Pensacola musicians backing Hedgecock in his first large-scale solo concert.

Singing songs from his Orbison demo album, along with several Broadway hits and contemporary power ballads, Hedgecock ended up raising over $100,000 for the organization and earned the key to the city of Pensacola as gratitude.

2007-2008: Reflections
The success of the 2005 benefit concert got the attention of independent record label, Aspirion Records, and its COO, George Collier. The idea was conceived to create an album featuring Hedgecock's take on several of the "classics," while featuring two new original songs. It was thought that this would enable the relatively-unknown Hedgecock to sell albums based initially on song title recognition, while providing a vehicle for his voice to be heard.

In August of 2007, after returning from a study-abroad trip to Berlin, Hedgecock went into the studios with Collier to begin work on the album. Based on his previous work and collaboration with Larry Butler, Butler agreed to produce the album with the help of Nashville music industry veterans John Jonethis and Billy Sherrill.

Early the following year, the resulting album, Reflections, was released. The CD comprised 16 well-known classics along with 2 new original ballads, I Don't Know and Lovers. The response to I Don't Know was overwhelmingly positive, and the decision was made to make a single out of it and release it to radio. It quickly rose in both the primary and secondary market charts, ultimately reaching #37 on the Adult Contemporary Billboard chart.

During this time, Hedgecock also graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, the Computer Engineering overall Program Award, a minor in German, and acceptance into Vanderbilt's Ph.D. program the following semester with a full-ride and a Research Assistantship position at the "Institute for Software Integrated Systems."

2009-2010: Live from the Saenger Theatre
The success of the hurricane benefit concert in 2005, A Night with Will Hedgecock, led Pensacola's local PBS station, WSRE, to air the footage several times during their membership pledge drives. It proved to be an extremely successful endeavor, and coupled with Hedgecock becoming more well-known after the release of his debut album, Reflections, it was thought that a national PBS concert might be mutually-beneficial to both PBS stations and Hedgecock.

As such, an idea for a new concert was hatched, which would include many songs from the Reflections album, a classical segment, as well as several new songs and a PBS-inspired "Doo-wop" section. The concert was held in September 2009 in Pensacola's historic Saenger Theatre, featuring Nashville-based backup singers and rhythm section and a large portion of the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra. It was recorded in HD and met with much praise, both from attendees and the PBS network, who agreed to air the concert nationally starting the following year.

2010-Present
Following the recording of the Live from the Saenger Theatre concert in September 2009, negotiations were entered into with PBS about the airing of the event. It was decided to air the program as a PBS special pledge event during the upcoming 2010 pledge drives. After attending the national PBS convention in Austin, Texas, Hedgecock caught the eye of many of the PBS stations across the nation who are currently airing the concert during their 2010 pledge drives starting in June.

Hedgecock is currently traveling around the U.S., doing PBS station visits and performing concerts. He was recently voted "the next PBS superstar" by New York City's local PBS station, WLIW.