He worked for the family business for his entire childhood and high school years, becoming a star baker while honing his musical skills. At age 20, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force at the start of the Korean War and hoped that during this military service he could learn a new trade. He specifi cally did not tell the Air Force about his background as a baker as he wanted to move on to something else. After taking an aptitude test, the Air Force told him that they determined he would be of good service as a baker and were sending him to baking school. He spent his military service years as a baker. The country music star would tell people that when his father heard this news, his father never laughed so hard in his life.
While Mel Tillis was the most famous person who stuttered in the U.S. for decades, he was also the catalyst for the movement for civil rights for people who stutter. Just like Rosa Parks ignited the modern-day civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat on the bus on Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, Mel Tillis inspired a watershed moment in the civil rights movement for people who stutter in the United States.
In 1972, Tillis was a regular cast member of the popular weekly CBS show, “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour,” which required him to speak lines. Many times, he was not fl uent. After one show, a lady who was a regular viewer wrote to Campbell and said that having Tillis on the show with his stuttering set a bad example for children. The producers fl agged the letter and showed it to Campbell, who was irate. On the next show, Campbell read the letter on the air with the introduction, “Here’s a letter from a lady who says that Mel Tillis’ stuttering is a bad infl uence on our young people
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and shouldn’t be allowed on television.” His answer to the woman’s letter was, “Why shouldn’t Mel Tillis be on television? They let Ray Charles be on.” Campbell proceeded to blast the woman’s letter and say that people who stutter have the same rights as everyone else and should not be treated any diff erently just because they have a handicap. The next week, Campbell received thousands of positive letters about his tirade. Kudos to Glen Campbell!
Mel Tillis was an absolute champion in terms of putting a human face on stuttering to say the least. He certainly led an accomplished – and interesting! – life.
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