BILLY CRAWFORD

BILLY CRAWFORD


Billy Crawford (born Billy Joe Crawford on May 16, 1982) is an Filipino-American musician and actor with musical influences from R&B, pop, and soul. Crawford became known in Europe and Asia with song titles such as "When You Think About Me", "Never My Love", "Steamy Nights" and "Bright Lights". Crawford is multilingual, being fluent in two Philippine languages, his native Tagalog as well as Cebuano. His second language is American English and he is conversational in French. Crawford has lived in New York City, USA, and in Paris for five years and for one year in London. He currently resides in Los Angeles as of 2007. In 2008, he went to Manila to host Pinoy Dream Academy's uberture. He has also hosted the prestigious Miss Earth 2008 held in the Philippines.

Crawford was born in Manila, Philippines, to a Filipina mother who is half Spanish named Mayette and an American father named Jack. He has two half-brothers. Crawford was discovered at an early age of 3 years, singing at a bowling alley that his mother visited often. He became a series regular on an afternoon GMA Network television show called That's Entertainment under the name Billy Joe. He attended International Christian Academy in the Philippines until his departure for the US when he was 11 and balanced both his professional acting and academic repertory obligations. He acted in a few movies before he moved to the United States where he started a music career, performing mostly in the United Kingdom and France, as well as in Asia. His pre-career started in Dallas, Texas, USA, where he lived and performed his singing and then moved to New York City. During this time, he legally changed his name to Billy Crawford. He went to a school in New York City which lots of other famous people such as Mandy Moore and Nina Sky attended. In 1996, he danced with Michael Jackson onstage when he was 14 years old and appeared as one of his back-up dancers at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards. He dated Mandy Moore for almost a year when he was 15 and she was 14.



He recorded his first album called Billy Crawford (which included hits such as "Urgently In Love" and "Mary Lopez") when he was 15 years old. It went straight into the charts in the Philippines and Europe. His foreign career did not last too long. After a year, everyone began to forget who he was. He took a small break at first and had a few accidents during that time and he was in the hospital. When he was released from hospital, he fainted and fell down the stairs in front of it, and returned to hospital the same day with a broken jaw, which healed successfully. His quiet break lasted more than a year.

Crawford had major chart success in France and other parts of Europe, but did not repeat this success in the United Kingdom and the United States, although his single "You Didn't Expect That" did make the lower reaches of the UK Top 40, peaking at number 35. He also contributed a remix of the Pokémon anime theme song for Pokémon: The First Movie in the series. Crawford also appeared at a popular Filipino American event called "Fiesta Filipina" in 2001 held in San Francisco, California, and American people have become more aware of his name.

Crawford's album Big City was released in 2004 in France and Asia only. The single "Bright Lights" was unable to break into the any Top 10 charts. The second single "Steamy Nights", fared better making Top 40, and was featured on 7 compilations across Europe and was the first single in Germany. Crawford's music video for "Steamy Nights" was shot in Los Angeles, California, and was produced with the same people who worked on the Destiny's Child single "Lose My Breath". Actress Jenna Dewan, who was one of the main characters in the popular 2006 movie Step Up, was featured as one of Crawford's main dance partners.

source: Wikipedia