This week’s golden buzzer winner on America’s Got Talent was Lily Meola, a singer who had a record deal in the past but never released anything through it.
When she introduced herself to the judges, Simon Cowell asked her if she ever released any of her songs when she had the deal, and she said she hadn’t.
Lily blew the judges away and Heidi Klum gave her the golden buzzer with tears in her eyes.
However, just because Lily never released any music of her own, that doesn’t mean songs she’s performed haven’t been released.
America’s Got Talent star Lily Meola recorded a duet with Willie Nelson
This happened in 2013. Lily had been performing music in a café since she was in middle school. Her family was close friends with Annie D’Angelo, who was Willie Nelson’s wife. When Lily was 20, Willie came in to watch her perform and saw her sing Patsy Cline’s Crazy.
He loved it and asked her to record a song with him.
“After the show, Willie handed me a napkin with a few song titles written on it and said, ‘Would you like to record any of these?’” Meola told Wasserman Music. “He asked me if I wanted to be on his duet album. I was like, ‘Hell, yes.’”
Lily recorded Will You Remember Mine with Willie. The song appeared on his 2013 album, To All The Girls …
Lily has also performed live with Willie Nelson
Lily Meola ended up singing with Willie at all his Farm Aid concerts each year and she also toured with him.
This also led to Lily getting to collaborate with other singers, including Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Van Halen’s Sammy Hagar, and she even worked with Jackson Browne.
Here is a look at Lily and Willie singing Will You Remember Mine at Farm Aid.
After she won her spot in the live shows, Lily Meola spoke to PEOPLE and said that she wouldn’t be singing any cover songs on America’s Got Talent, and she would stick with her originals.
“The show is a talent show and I love to sing. Singing’s what I’ve been doing my whole life and writing is a little bit newer to me,” Lily told PEOPLE. “But [being a] singer-songwriter is my talent so I’m gonna stick to the originals. I know that can be hard for some people to hear, just ’cause it’s fresh. It might be a disadvantage, it might be an advantage, we’ll see!”
For fans who wonder what that might sound like, here is the official music video for Lily Meola’s Got Your Way.
America’s Got Talent airs on Tuesday nights at 8/7c on NBC.