Trips to New York City for checkups has inspired a 13-year-old cancer survivor to take his music to the Vicksburg Mall.

While in the Big Apple, Dillion Nevels said he saw street musicians performing to earn a few bucks.

“I kind of picked it up from the Yankees,” said the Vicksburg Junior High eighth-grader and saxophonist in the school band who also plays acoustic guitar. “The most I’ve made was 50 bucks.”

Dillion started strumming at the mall at Christmas, while working as a volunteer with The Salvation Army Angel Tree with his mother, Christie Taylor.

“When I’m out and about, I’ll see people around him,” said mall manager Mike Carlisle. “This is the first time we’ve done something like this, and it would be great to showcase young talent.”

Dillion, a fan of the late heavy metal guitarist Randy Rhoads, who played with Ozzy Osbourne and Quiet Riot, said he uses music to express himself.

“I’ve always liked the sound of an acoustic guitar,” he said. “I pick up what I can from people who play — and from the streets.”

Dillion also performs at his church, Lighthouse Assembly of God on Sherman Avenue, where his stepfather, Steve Taylor, is in a band called Blessed Assurance.

Dillion was diagnosed in 1999 at 18 months old with a cancer called neuroblastoma that caused a tumor to develop in his stomach. “We had to fly to New York City in December 2000 to remove the tumor,” his mother said. “He’s a survivor.”

The cancer is gone, she said, and the family has been traveling to New York each year for checkups.

It wasn’t until this summer that Dillion “really took it in,” Taylor said.

“He got the whole experience (in New York),” she said. “He talked with street musicians there. We let him play his saxophone in Central Park. I wanted him to be inspired. I wanted to encourage him.”

While in New York, Dillion visited The Juilliard School, a prestigious performing arts conservatory.

“Now it’s his dream to go to Juilliard,” Christie Taylor said.

Carlisle said he is open to the idea of musicians performing in the mall.

“They would need to get permission first, and we ask that it be non-electronic stuff,” he said. “We may reach a point where we have music. We’re thinking about it.”