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Hey there. So here’s my story. I was born and raised in New Jersey in a small town called Mendham, where there were people with names like Hoxie Wells and Clyde Potts, and farmers like Fred and Joe Backer and Pete Cemente and Clarence Negro. All this southern New England life only 45 miles from Manhattan.
I bailed hay for Clarence a few times. He was pretty ornery, and I didn’t last too long. I worked up the street at the Hallmarks dog kennel doing you know what with my brother Jim. I didn’t like that much either. This was in the 60’s and 70’s.
I was told to try out for a part in the Chester Theater Group's production of Stop The World, I Want to Get Off, which began a few years training in singing and dancing and acting with some Broadway vets like Billie Burr. It was good training that I still carry on stage. In Stop the World, my character was born and then died on stage. I still remember the feeling of power and intensity in commanding a room at the age of 9.
I started playing the guitar at about age 11 when my sister’s interest was waning, and the nylon classical was not in use. I figured out the chords from a Mel Bay book and started playing to records. John Prine’s Haystack is my earliest memory of songs I learned. By seventh grade I had made friends with Tom Gimbel who was learning, and we started a rock band, rehearsing a few times a week at Mike Forman’s house, he had the drums. We were called Cyrus McCormick, a parallel and tip of the hat to Jethro Tull. I’ve never stopped playing music.
I’m proud to have Ralph Waldo Emerson in my family tree. He’s a cousin on my dad's mother’s side, the Thompson’s. I am also mystic, I was trained by Walt Baptiste, who was a true American pioneer in the esoteric arts. Walt taught his students to be practical mystics. For 7 years I worked and studied yoga and meditation at the Magaña and Walt Baptiste Health and Spiritual Center in San Francisco and El Salvador Central America. I am blessed to have been led to their teachings. And I’m proud to have been a major contributor to the operations of the Baptiste Center.
I have traveled some. I have spent time in India, Mexico, Central America, northern and southern Europe. I have seen quite a bit of the United States. I love to go to new places in the world and absorb as much of the culture as possible. I feel strongly that traveling is essential to higher education.
My music is often personal. At the same time I try to write as universally as possible. I have toured a little and am working on touring more with this new cd. That said, I have performed thousands of times in bars, clubs, pubs weddings, party's parades. Sung at birthday's funerals. And sung played many many hours to the ethers for my own enjoyment.
II love recording and making songs special, and have had the privilege to work with some of the finest musicians in America in my genre. Known and unknown.
guitar Gabriel said, "Music is a feeling" And there is a whole range of feeling I have, for better or worse. And as a songwriter my job is to give the listener the chance to feel their feelings. Or feel something they wouldn't have felt with out having had the experience. That's what's happened to me anyway..
Bill Kelly
www.MrAmericana.com
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