Magazine-Winter-2025 - Flipbook - Page 51
BAM A P EO P L E
Country
and Soul
W
hen Coleridge
“Pynk Beard”
Tillman walks
into a room, you
notice him. It’s
not just because of his bright-pink
beard. You immediately see the
light he brings with him.
That infectious joy has carried
the musician from small bars in
Tuscaloosa to songwriting credits
with Jennifer Lopez and Flo Rida
and back to center stage as a
country-soul artist with a mission to
make music that makes people feel
good.
“I’m like a big golden retriever. I
just love to be around people,” he
said. “I just want to smile and see
how you’re doing.”
A Birmingham native from the
tight-knit community of Dolomite,
Tillman arrived at The University
of Alabama in 2001 after a brief
stint at Auburn. He was drawn to
Tuscaloosa’s music scene and the
freedom it gave him to perform.
“Tuscaloosa taught me how to be
a showman and what it means to
walk into a room full of people who
don’t know you, who are not really
there to see you, and command
their attention,” he said.
Tillman fronted a local band
called Rojambo, and those early
years of late-night gigs honed
his ability to connect with the
audience, which carried him far
beyond the Tuscaloosa bar circuit.
After college, Tillman joined a
touring gospel play, Devil in the
Details, which sparked a deeper
desire to pursue music full time.
When the tour ended, his mother
offered a deal.
“To me,
all of that
is country
music
’cause
country folk
made it,
right?”
“She said, ‘Quit your job, move
home, and just make music.’”
He did. Within a week, he had
written and recorded a full album.
But breaking out of Birmingham
proved tough, until one phone call
changed his life.
On his 30th birthday, broke
and heartbroken after a failed tour,
Tillman got a call from Mike Warren.
The song they’d written together
months before found its way to
Jennifer Lopez for the Step Up
Revolution soundtrack. “It was the
title track: ‘Going In’ with J-Lo, Flo
Rida and Lil Jon,” he said. “They
sent me a check for $30,000.” He
paid off some bills and student loan
debts and took off to Los Angeles
with the $4,000 he had left.
Within weeks, he’d landed a
publishing deal and spent the
next decade writing for others.
Eventually, the urge to perform
again was too strong to ignore.
When Tillman returned to the
stage, he wanted to do it on his
own terms. At 43, his beard had
turned naturally black and white, or
“skunk-colored,” as he called it. A
friend challenged him at a party to
dye it pink.
“It’s a call back to the young
me, self-expression and not being
tied down to some generic board,”
Tillman said. “You should always
look like you. This reminds me of
me. This looks like me to me.”
Just like that, “Pynk Beard”
was born: a name, a persona and
a philosophy rolled into one. He
doesn’t have the traditional look
of a country singer, but Tillman’s
music style is country at its core.
“Genres are for publications.
Genres are just so that other
people can digest it a little easier,”
he said. “I believe music comes
from regions, and regions are built
on culture, and culture is built on
people and resources. I’m from the
sticks. What do you listen to in the
sticks? Well, there’s a lot of gospel.
There’s a lot of soul music. To me,
all of that is country music ’cause
country folk made it, right? And
everything country people do is
country.”
He’s released Red Dirt Diaries,
a five-song EP, and hopes for
an album to drop in the spring.
Recording new material is
enjoyable, but he finds the most
joy on the road. Currently, he’s
performing across the South while
turning heads everywhere he goes.
“That’s really the best part of it,”
he said. “Getting out and seeing
people dance and seeing them
getting to know one another has
been the best.”
WINTER 2025
49
