Next week will mark 41 years of my writing this column, and in those more than four decades there has been only one person I have profiled previously under a totally different name.
And that is Nashville singer-songwriter Benita Hill who was the subject of this column on June 14, 1987, under her then-performing name of Bonnie Gallie.
By then she already had toured as a backup vocalist for Conway Twitty and The Allman Brothers (as Bonnie Bramlett’s replacement) and had recorded as a backup vocalist on many sessions including Twitty’s huge hit single (I’d) Love To Lay You Down.
At the time I was writing about her in 1987, Gallie had out a popular Mercury Records ballad that she co-wrote called You Make It Hard (To Say No) that was backed by an equally popular music video.
“Bonnie was a nickname I had used since I was a kid, and Gallie was the last name of my then husband,” the artist said from her Nashville home. “My birth name is Benita Gooby. Hill is the last name of my second husband.
“So that’s where Benita Hill comes from,” she added. “I figured after so many changes in my life, it was time for a new performing name.”
Hill was amazed that I not only knew about her previous music de plume but also had interviewed her 24 years ago when she was a fledgling artist on Mercury Records.
“That was such a hard time for me,” she recalled. “The label was doing zilch for my single, and I felt like I was always banging my head against the wall in order to be heard.”
That doesn’t seem the case now with Hill’s recordings and music videos being heard worldwide over several Web sites. Her current single Broken on Now Records also is backed by a music video that can be found at youtube.com. She co-wrote the song with Athens, Ga.,-native Vip Vipperman.
Her several CDs continue to attract raving reviews including her Christmas CD Wineglow and Mistletoe and her jazzy I’ll See You In My Song.
October – the month focusing on breast cancer survivors – is a good time to be catching up with Hill, who co-wrote two of Garth Brooks’ biggest hits (Two Piña Coladas and It’s Your Song), because she is a cancer survivor of 14 years.
Just two weeks after Brooks recorded Two Piña Coladas (co-authored by Hill, Sandy Mason and Shawn Camp) she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in May of 1997.
That cancer starts in cells called lymphocytes, which are part of the body's immune system.
Out of that terrible time of trying to survive came the realization that things she thought were the most important in life – trying to have your song recorded on a hit album or trying to land a major record deal – were not nearly as important as having great, supportive friends and enjoying the smaller things in life.
Brooks was among those who sent her flowers and funny notes to cheer her up. Even before Two Piña Coladas, he had recorded Hill’s song Take The Keys To My Heart for his Sevens album.
During her chemotherapy and recovery, Hill and her songwriting friends began working on what became Hill’s second album, Tangerine Moon, released in December 1998.
Hill wanted to have on that album a song that would be a tribute to her mother, Carmen Revelle (real name Ada Gooby), who had sung live over the NBC radio network with a band in Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom and who had performed at the popular Chicago nightclub Chez Paree.
Hill’s long-time performing and songwriting partner, Pam Wolfe, liked how Hill described her mother in saying it was “her song” that made Hill sing.
And that’s how the two came to co-write It Was Your Song that Brooks immediately recorded as It’s Your Song as a tribute to his own cancer-stricken mother. She also had been a singer who, as Colleen Carroll, recorded for Capitol Records in the 1950s and performed with Red Foley on the Ozark Jubilee network TV show.
The chorus goes: “ ’Cause it was your song that made me sing. It was your voice that gave me wings. And it was your light that shined; guiding my heart to find this place where I belong. It was your song.”
Today, cancer survivor Benita Hill is one of Nashville’s most popular performers (often with Becky Hobbs and Kacey Jones as A Cowgirl, A Diva and A Shameless Hussy) and one of its best songwriters.
So it’s indeed a pleasure approaching the 41st anniversary of this column to profile this classic lady not only as Benita Hill but also 24 years ago as Bonnie Gallie. You can learn more about her at benitahill.com.
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