Ten years ago, Billy Davis lost his voice — a traumatic loss for anyone but devastating for half of a vocal duo that was just gaining momentum.
With little hope Davis would ever regain his singing voice, the duo, Weston and Davis, disbanded.
Guess what? They’re back!
Weston and Davis recently began to do concerts. Color it a miracle.
Davis is now minister of music and worship at First Baptist Church of Matthews. His brother-in-law Tony Weston is worship pastor at Second Baptist Church of Conway, Ark.
Ten years ago when both men were ministers of music in Arkansas, they’d just started a new recording project when Davis inexplicably lost his voice.
He could communicate with visitors only through a computer or marker board to communicate with his choir.
“I couldn’t utter a word for weeks,” he said. “I went to specialists in three cities … I’ll never forget the rainy afternoon that my wife, Terry, and I wept in the parking garage after getting the specialist’s report that my vocal cords looked like they belonged to an 80-year-old man.”
Doctors suggested he pursue another vocation.
The next few months were difficult and depressing.
Before he lost his voice, Davis and Weston had written songs about life’s valleys, suffering and God’s love and care. But Davis found himself experiencing his own deepest valley.
One day reading Psalm 31:22 Davis knew God was listening to his prayers: “I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes: nevertheless You heard my plea when I cried unto You.”
During the next several years, Davis and his family worked at Horn Creek Conference Center in Colorado and at a church and Christian school in Colorado Springs. He taught music and began assuming “light” music ministry responsibilities.
“During those ‘quiet’ years, I felt an awareness that God would have me concentrate on the writing/composing part of my life,” he said. “I was truly finding that my identity was not in my voice or singing, but in the Lord Jesus and whatever He chose to do with my life.”
Still, Davis wondered if he ever would sing again without pain.
Three years ago, Greg Dills, then a pastor in Illinois, asked Davis to be the church’s music minister. Dills and his wife, Jodie, encouraged Davis and gradually, he began to sing again.
When Dills was called as pastor of First Baptist Church of Matthews, he invited Davis to serve as worship pastor. He recently asked Davis to contact Weston to do a concert together. The two had sung together on a few occasions in recent years, but had never risked a full concert.
When Davis contacted Weston about doing a concert, Weston was shocked. “I asked Billy if he had totally lost his mind,” Weston said. “Billy told me at that time that his voice had been getting stronger and he thought he could handle it if he paced himself. So we scheduled it.”
That concert was in June.
“I was very concerned about his voice, but he just kept singing and sounded great,” Weston said. “We sang two songs in two morning services and performed a full hour and a half concert that night — the first Weston and Davis concert in over 10 years. It was at that point we looked at each other and said, ‘Hey — we might could do this again!’”
“The result was an amazing reminder of what God had called Tony and me to so many years ago, when just out of high school we realized that the Lord had put His hand on us together to serve Him in a very special way,” Davis said.
Then they did a July concert at Second Baptist of Conway.
“It seemed like a dream to me,” Davis said. “After 10 years since our final concert, we were privileged to do two within a month’s time and make our recordings available to people again. What a blessing! What a wonderful year!”
Davis can be reached at (704) 847-9150 or [email protected].