33 year old Bear Bailey has always loved to sing but thought his dream was dead because of his age. Until TikTok and his local gas station brought his dream back to life.

Bailey had been taking song requests a cashiers at his local gas station named Melissa McGee and her two daughters who also worked there. They recorded him so he decided to put the video up on his TikTok and in less than two weeks of posting it he has gained more than a million followers!

“They found out I could sing, you know, just from living around here, and so on the days that I would go in there to get a snack or whatever, they’d say, ‘Hey, Bear, you’ve got to sing, you’ve got to sing for me,’” Bailey said.

“Bear! I’ve been waiting for you,” cashier Melissa McGee, known to locals as Mama, shouts in one clip as Bailey walks in and breaks out into a cover of John Legend’s “All of Me.”

Bailey's real name is James but has been called Bear since he was a kid, he told HuffPost that becoming a professional singer has been a dream of his his whole life.

“It’s a very humbling feeling,” said Bailey, who works in construction as a welder. “I’ve sang my entire life, and, you know, I’m 33 and you just get to an age where you kind of give up on your dream because you’re like, ‘This is never going to happen.’”

“And then this happens and it kind of reaffirms, like, hey, I don’t need to give up,” he continued. “I love what it’s showing my daughter who’s 5 years old, like, Dad didn’t quit.”

Melissa McGee, whom Bailey described as being like “the mama to the local neighborhood,” said she thinks of Bailey like a son and is so excited that his videos have gone viral.

“We love him to death,” she said. “He has an amazing voice, and somebody needs to sign him.”

Bailey's back up dancers/singers are just strangers who find joy in his singing. Bailey said that they’re mostly strangers but that he loves their reactions.

“I really do walk up and people have no clue,” he said. “But, I mean, now people literally are going over there and waiting to see if I’ll come in, and it’s really crazy.”

Many TikTok fans love Bailey's voice and how he makes his community come together.

“Thank you for this feel good video. It’s nice to see people liking each other. Americans are awesome,” one person commented under a video of Bailey singing “’Til Summer Comes Around” by Keith Urban.

The songs Bailey sings on his TikTok are covers but he does write his own music as well.

“The dream now is just to keep pushing positive vibes to keep bringing unity like our community,” Bailey said. “And the dream now is to write songs that can just help maybe one or two people out — out of a bad situation or out of a bad mood or brighten somebody’s day.”

He's doing just that, in one of his recent videos, he paid it forward to McGee and her daughters after receiving donations online.

“They’re a big part of this, too. I mean, they hold the camera, they talk in the songs and all that stuff, and they really helped so I just wanted to give back,” he said.

SOURCE: Yahoo News

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Kari Steele