Native Minnesotan Alyson Gilbert, who has so far dodged elimination on NBC-TV's "Nashville Star" reality talent show, said this afternoon that a serious vocal cord ailment while she was in college left her fretting for a year that she might never sing again.
Gilbert, 29, who grew up in Crookston and attended Minnesota State University, Moorhead, said that when she was 20 she her voice was losing some of its range and she "got hoarse real easily" and was routinely suffering from tonsillitis and strep throat.
Doctors discovered three nodules on her vocal cords, and that led to surgery and then -- of all things -- no talking for four months.
"That was very tough, especially for me because I tend to do a lot of talking," she said with self-amusement.
This turn of events, she said, left her "very concerned. I've been singing, I think, before I could talk."
Following many months of therapy, "by the grace of God I got my voice back. It was about a year."
Now, Gilbert says, some people tell her that her voice now has "a little smokier quality."
Gilbert's first performance after recovery was at the Grand Forks wedding of a friend. At the wedding, she met the man she would marry.
