Biography

Bill first picked up the mandolin in 1992 while attending the Audubon Expedition Institute and has hardly put it down since. He spent over a decade under the tutelage of Bay Area multi-instrumentalist Jody Stecher. Attending David Grisman and Mike Marshall’s Mandolin Symposium regularly, he was inspired by and learned directly from David, Mike, Don Stiernberg, John Reischman, Tim O’Brien, and the fellow mandolin enthusiasts who gathered in Santa Cruz each summer.

As a founding member of The Wronglers Bill has had the privilege and pleasure of performing at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival for the past ten years. Touring for The Wronglers with Jimmie Dale Gilmore album “Heirloom Music” found Bill performing at venues across the country, including A Prairie Home Companion (Flagstaff, AZ), The Birchmere (Alexandria, VA), Club Passim (Cambridge, MA), eTown (Boulder, CO), Joe’s Pub (New York, NY), Mountain Stage (Charleston, WV), Old Town School of Music (Chicago, IL), The Station Inn (Nashville, TN), Sweetwater (Mill Valley, CA), SXSW (Austin, TX) and World Cafe (Philadelphia, PA).

With the encouragement of his bandmates and buoyed by the enthusiastic response of audiences to his original material, Bill spent the last several years writing and refining the songs and tunes that have come to make up his first solo album “Out on a Limb.” Coming full circle, Bill was delighted when Jody offered to produce and collaborate on the album. The thirteen tracks are rooted in the varied repertoire learned during his time studying with Jody and shaped by his experiences since. Influenced by Bluegrass, Old Time, Swing, Dawg, Blues, Ragtime and Rock n’ Roll Bill has developed a style that is perhaps best described as Acoustic Americana.