Billy Crawford September 14, 2009

Billy Joe Crawford or also known as Billy Crawford was born 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 “Trackin'”, “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 English and he is conversational in French. Crawford not only lived in New York City, USA, but also 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. Billy Crawford is now a talent of ABS-CBN and is recently seen in one of the mainstay’s ABS-CBN Sunday show, ASAP

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 as one of Michael’s back-up dancers at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards. He dated Mandy Moore for almost a year when he was 17 and she was 15.

His Career as a Singer.

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 film Step Up, was featured as Crawford’s dance partner.

Another song from Candy Store was leaked from the album and received airplay on London radio. Thought to be a duet with Ginuwine, it is featured on the Big City album. After doing the first ever online reality show “the MSN Dance Show”, his third single from Big City, “3 Wishes”, was canceled by his label. Crawford felt it was time for something new and decided not to re-sign his contract with V2 records. He is writing and producing songs for other artists. In 2006, Crawford began recording a new album which was expected to be released in 2007. In 2006, he toured during the summer with the L5 in France and in November he was scheduled to return to his home country to shoot a film.

In 2007, he returned to the Philippines for a new dance reality show M.O.V.E for GMA Network. The show searched for six back-up dancers for his Araneta Coliseum concert. After the successful concert, he returned to the United States to work on projects and fulfill several commitments. Upon his return to the Philippines, Crawford decided to sign with ABS-CBN as an exclusive artist instead of returning to GMA. He became a regular on the Sunday variety show ASAP and later hosted the 2nd season of “Pinoy Dream Academy”, a reality search that involves the skill of singing.

Private Life.

Crawford did not receive significant media attention after the Big City Tour 2005, mostly being mentioned in a few magazines for his break-up with Lorie, and began a new relationship with Marie Courchinoux (also known as Maryss from Paris), a French dancer and member of the Beat Freaks whom he met when she auditioned for the Big City tour. At first, Maryss has only referred to Crawford as a good friend and Crawford has admitted that he is too busy to find any relationships at the moment.Billy has also dated Mandy Moore when they were younger. He is exclusively dating Nikki Gil. They met while they hosted the second season of Pinoy Dream Academy (PDA). He is also close friends with the singers from Black Eyed Peas, Justin Timberlake as well as *NSYNC, and Matt Pokora a popular French singer. Amidst his blooming career in the international music scene, most especially in Europe, he decided to reside in the Philippines. His stay in the Philippines for his Move TV show gave Billy friendly connections with many other Filipino actors and singers such as Rochelle Pangilinan, Ruffa Mae Quinto, Gary Valenciano and Jay-R, as well as with many other famous actors and singers. Crawford completed in 2008 his studio engineering course at New York University in New York, United States, and he will plan on getting the diploma^.