MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY
As written by award
winning Karen Clarke
I’ve
followed Billy for decades and watched his lead guitar and electric blues
harmonica evolve. His style favors
rock & roll and rhythm & blues and he taught himself enough to make a
living for decades...........
Billy was born in Buffalo, New York, raised in
Indianapolis, and started playing professionally in Omaha, Nebraska. When he
was a child In “59” he formed his first group “Bill & The Hi-Deckers” with
Bob Jones (later to perform with Joe Cocker). He met Buddy Miles who was in the
local rival group “The Premiers.”
He joined the United States Air Force as a young teenager and while stationed
at Vandenberg Air Force Base worked with the local group “The Lyrics” whose
personnel included Tom Giving who went on to perform with J. C. Heartsfield.
Then in 1965, moved to Ft.Lauderdale, Fla. and played music everywhere,
including playing for Jackie Gleason at a party on his yacht. (I think this gig is was what first give
Billy the boating bug and the ambition to acquire a nice boat).
Billy formed a group called “What’s Left?” and the band worked
with Wayne Cochran as house band at a local club called The Barn, alternating
with the “CC Riders” for nonstop music each night. Then Billy moved to New York
City and worked local Greenwich Village nightspots including Cafe a Go-Go and
the Night Owl Cafe (mentioned in that years Mamas & Papas biggest hit). One
night he met Paul Butterfield in the Albert Hotel elevator who convinced him to
come to Chicago and play the blues.
Moving this time to Old Town Billy began jamming on stage
with Freddy King and Howlin’ Wolf. He
became a regular at a club called Mother Blues on Wells Street and finally landed
a permanent job with blues master Otis Rush which would last for many years.
Billy & Otis traveled together from Chicago to New York and played the very
first Ann Arbor Blues Festival of over 10,000 spectators. In between those
great engagements were West & South side bar gigs where occasional
shootings actually took place while the band was playing.
On March 23, 1969 Otis and Billy were featured on the cover of
the Chicago Sun Times Sunday Magazine. While working with Sam Lay (the original
Butterfield Blues Band drummer) he decided to produce his own album. The
sidemen included Phil Upchurch on bass and Donny Hathaway on keyboards. Steve
Goodman heard Billy in the studio and asked him to play electric harmonica on a
tune he wrote called ‘City of New Orleans’. The song went on to be a big hit
for Arlo Guthrie.
The next job to come
along was with “Baby Huey & the Baby Sitters” on Rush Street, a 14 piece
soul band cranking out grinding soul music until the dawns early light. Some
other local competitors were some other North side bar bands called “Chicago,
Styx, Reo Speed wagon, Cheap Trick” and old friend Buddy Miles. At this point
Bill couldn’t resist forming his own group called Horace Monster, which would
last for the next 7 years. In the Chicago Reader’s Annual Poll the band was
voted the top rock act of 1975. One of the local performers who auditioned for
that band was Chaka Chan and Horace Monster sometimes became a topic of
conversation on the Steve Dahl show. At a club called “The Night
Gallery” a brand new group from Rockford called Cheap Trick was one of the
regular acts to work with the band. In 1976 after a 7-year relationship with
Playboy model “Tania” (who eventually became Eric Idle’s wife and is very happy
and successful to this day), Billy moved into his van to economize which became
his permanent residence for the next 2 years. He fondly remembers the period as
a humorously unique experience saying things like “wherever I turned off my
engine, I was home!” or “any where I went, I only had to drive one direction!”.
It was positive and creative, really putting things into
perspective with plenty of time to think during the Chicago winters, he
recalls. Receiving letters of interest and support from Jay Ferguson of “Sprit”
and also the late Lowell George of “Little Feat”, Billy went on his own with a
solo career. He met country singer Dana Clark and invited her over to his place
saying, “I just live around the corner” She followed him around the corner and
was surprised to see his old van.
They got their own place and worked together as a duo for
the next five years helping her record her new album. After Billy and Dana
played in concert on the same show with “Alliotta, Haynes, and Jeremiah”, Billy
was asked to join the group and replace Skip Haynes who was leaving for a solo
career. The band worked well together and Billy wrote several songs for their
new album as the “Acme Thunder Band”.
When it was finally time to leave the group Harvey Mandel
joined the group to replace him. Later that year Billy teamed up with singer
Mark Skyer for a duo. Mark had just returned from touring with “Canned Heat”.
In 1980, Billy teamed up with Dennis Johnson and Gary Smith, the original “Survivor”
rhythm section to do some more recording. One of the records he wrote “Feels
like gold”, got airplay on WLUP, WXRT, WLS, and WMET.
He recorded a popular WXRT commercial for ‘The Chicago
Music Company’. On March 3, 1982 David Letterman mentioned Billy on his
national TV show. Later that year Billy was asked to be a guest several times
on the morning show, which aired on WIND radio. That same year a new version of
Horace Monster was featured in “Chicago’s Local Rock” book.
Major radio station Z-95 gave airplay to the bands single “Going
To Mexico” in May of 1988. On “The Beat Of Chicago Show,” Bill McCormick
encouragingly added that there seemed to be too much time between the bands
records.
The band was still called Horace Monster after almost 15
years. This was unusual because most performers joked around and said things
like “don’t change the act; just change the name”, but the band had lasting
power in a competitive market. On September 20, 1990, Ben Hollis, star of the
Wild Chicago Show” on channel 11, interviewed Billy for the show. The topics
went from bands to Billy’s boat, and they went for a humorous ride all around
the lakefront. Billy’s boat “Fast Forward” was shown on the show at full
throttle as part of the beginning credits each week of those seasons shows and
is still rerun often. That show was aired on December 14, 1990.
That same year Bill takes out the well-known lightning bolt
guitar and forms the “Greased Lightning Band” bringing back 60’s & 70’s
music. In the bands first month they play many outdoor festivals with names
like “B.J. Thomas” & “Gary Lewis and the Playboys.” The band
played clubs & private parties in the winter and outdoor concerts &
neighborhood festivals in the summertime and worked well together for years.
In 1996 the lead singer of the “Greased Lightning Band”
Cass Siva and Billy met Bobby Blue Bland at the House of Blues in Chicago when
he unexpectedly invited her up to sing with him during the show. Later in the
dressing room he invited them to come to Mississippi to be on his new album.
Then he surprised her when he invited her up to sing again at the same club on
May 10, 1997.
During the 2nd week of January 1998 on a chartered
cruise through the Caribbean with Delbert McClinton & Friends, Delbert’s
road manager organized a 2 AM jam session on Jan 17 with Delbert’s drummer on
percussion, Clay McClinton on harmonica (Delbert’s son), seasoned bass player
Don Bennett who has been working with the Marcia Ball band for decades, and
Billy on stage on guitar which lasted until the dawns early light.
During the first week of January, 2001 on
the same annual cruise international Cajun star Wayne Toups invited Billy up to
play harmonica during his stage show. Still
having the fire for his favorite music, In January 2002 Billy managed to get
backstage with Paul Rogers (The voice of “Bad Company” and “Free”) after a show
in downtown Chicago.
The musical adventures go on and on.
He is my younger brother and I was his very first fan.............(To
Be Continued!) .……….
Karen Clarke