What We Didn't Know About Mel Tillis

We all know what a superstar and a legend Mel Tillis was in the country music world and in the entertainment industry as a whole. We could fill up many pages listing his accomplishments and accolades. We were very fortunate to have him as a dear friend of the Stuttering Foundation for many years, and he famously served as our 1998 national spokesman and honorary chairman.

While it was widely known that stuttering ran in Mel Tillis' family as both his father and brother also stuttered, many admirers of America’s most loved person who stuttered might be surprised at some interesting parts of his life that are little-known.

Mel’s musical talents are well known throughout the world, but what about his football talents? As a star halfback on his high school football team, Mel received tryout offers at the University of North Carolina and Florida State University, both of which were nationally ranked programs. He set his goals on making the team at Florida State and attended their summer camp but was not offered a scholarship or a spot on the team. Since most of his high school friends were enrolling at the University of Florida, he decided to enroll there and try to make the football team as a “walk on.” He stayed with the team for the entire tryout period, but ultimately did not make it. During the tryout camp, he became friends with two players, Rick Casares and Buford Long, both of whom would go on to have solid NFL careers.

Since football was his main interest in going to college, he only stayed at the University of Florida for one semester and left to pursue his music. However, in the typical good spirit of Mel Tillis, despite being cut from the team, he became a major supporter of University of Florida football and the school’s athletic programs in general, organizing a big country music fundraiser each year for the athletic department.

Besides music and football, Mel Tillis was deeply entrenched in another profession. In his hometown of Pahokee, Florida, the Tillis family had a well-known enterprise called the Tillis’ Hometown Bakery, where from an early age Mel worked alongside his father, his uncles and his cousins. From a young age, he learned to bake breads, muffins, donuts, pies, cookies and decorate fancy cakes.

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 specifically 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 fluent. 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 flagged 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 influence on our young people 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 differently 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.

From the Winter 2025 Magazine