Bailey Grace Pattison, or Bailey Grace as she’s known on stage, has been singing from a young age thanks to her family.
“My dad was a worship leader, so I was up on stage performing with him,” Pattison said. “I grew up around a lot of music. We’ve always been a big concert-going family.”
Pattison said she was always very passionate about music, but she didn’t start getting into it until her freshman year of high school.
“I joined the worship team at my church and started doing worship leading. I've been in that ever since,” Pattison said.
Pattison has been singing at her church for the past six years, but it wasn’t until she decided to take part in the 478 Sings United competition this summer that her experience all came together.
478 Sings United is an online competition. The final rounds, however, were in-person, where singers would perform — live or pre-recorded — to raise money for the Central Georgia COVID-19 Response & Recovery Fund.
Every vote counted for a dollar and the competition ended up raising $84,131 by the end.
“I just decided to do the 478 Sings contest. That's kind of when I decided that I could really see myself pursuing music in the future,” Pattison said. “I obviously live in Macon now, but I'm from Jacksonville, Florida. So throughout the whole contest, I was driving back and forth.”
Pattison not only made it to the final round of the competition, but she ended up winning the $2,500 grand prize and the ability to record a track at Capricorn Sound Studios in Macon.
“This will be my first time in a recording studio actually working on a project. I'm just excited for the whole experience in general,” Pattison said. “It'll be really cool to be able to be in this historic place.”
Despite being passionate about music, Pattison has struggled to find time for it in her life.
“So between school and softball, I haven't done a whole lot of music stuff," she said. "I'm hoping now that our fall season is over that I can really kind of focus more on that."
You can follow Pattison’s musical journey on Facebook @baileygracemusic.
Keith Holmes Jr. ‘22 is a journalism and creative writing double major who has worked with The Cluster as general staff since his Sophomore year. Keith has received Best in SNO awards for his sports articles along with years of work at Mercer’s ESPN3 branch. Keith spends his free time playing video games and writing fiction around campus.
