Billy Gilman And Charlotte Church To Record Duet In England

09/01/2000 12:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Wendy Hermanson

(9/1/00, 12 p.m. ET) - Twelve-year-old singer Billy Gilman is a little bit country and 14-year-old singer Charlotte Church is a little bit opera, but both young singers are looking to solidify their pop music careers with an upcoming duet. Gilman tells LAUNCH that in addition to all of the press and promotion he's been doing recently, he will be boarding a plane today to record a duet with the Welsh singing sensation and fellow Sony Music artist.

"I'm packing up my things again and going to England. I'm doing a duet with Charlotte Church," he says, adding, "I'm doing a lot to promote my album. I doing a lot of radio and a lot of press. There's so many things in the making, we don't know which ones are going to be definite or not."

One thing that is definite is that the combination of Gilman and Church's powerful voices should make for one very interesting duet. Gilman added that they both have the same goal in mind -- both are looking to crossover even more towards the pop music realm: "[Charlotte] wants to turn pop. She wants to go the more of like the Britney Spears/'N Sync type of thing. She still wants to have that voice, but she wants to do it in a pop feeling. [So] we're doing a pop duet. It's kind of pop and kind of country, so we'll see what happens."

The still-untitled duet may appear on Gilman's Classic Christmas album, which is due out October 17, or it may be released as a single on Church's album, according to Gilman. His single "One Voice" is currently at No. 2 on the Billboard Country Singles Sales chart.

Meanwhile, Church will head back to the U.S. as early as Sept.10 for a limited U.S. engagement that will feature music from her chart-topping album Voice Of An Angel and her newest Sony Classical release, Charlotte Church. The five-date stint kicks off with two performances with the Nashville Symphony at Jackson Hall in Nashville, on Sept. 10 and 12.

-- Jason Gelman, New York