He has taken classes in these subjects at Northwestern University's program for gifted and talented youth. But he has also had to endure a hipbone disorder that kept him out of competitive sports.

“It has been hard living and not being able to do the things that other kids have done and I have always observed the world in a certain way and it just gave me all this different stuff I wanted to write about," he said.

William Graham has great empathy for people suffering from hardship and abuse; he wrote one song about children caught up in wars in Africa.

“It is raising awareness about African child soldiers and the children who are being taken away from their homes and given guns to go and fight in an army," he said.

William credits his father as an inspiration, but John Dee Graham says he provides minimal guidance to his gifted son.

“As little as possible, because, as an artist, he needs to find his own way, and he is, and, as a kid, he has to find his own way, and he is," he said.

Jon Dee Graham and his son William, carrying on a family music tradition.