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Biography
Bill Kelly was born and raised in Mendham, New Jersey, where there were people with names like Hoxie Wells, Clyde Potts and Clarence Negro; all this southern New England life only 45 miles away from Manhattan. His first brush with the entertainment business was in the 70’s, treading the theatrical boards, and at age 11 Bill came to the guitar, working out chords from a Mel Bay book and playing along to records.
Music became a consistent backstory through a life travelling India, Mexico, Europe and the US, digesting foreign cultures and studying mysticism and the esoteric arts with pioneer Walt Baptiste, under whom he studied and taught yoga for seven years in San Francisco and El Salvador. Whilst in SF he was also resident musician in The National Theater of the Deranged, fronted the bluegrass folk group Spare Parts and played bass for the Magana Baptiste Royal Academy of Belly Dance.
Bill moved through a series of successful bands, fronting the House of Cards who had numerous songs from their album Luck of the Irish featured in the TV series Northern Exposure and the Ken Russell film, Whore. In 2002, Bill co-founded the urban hillbilly duo Folkfoot and released Dos Hombres; the song It Must Stink to be Pink can be heard in Morgan Spurlock’s Academy Award nominated documentary Super Size Me. Kelly also performs on the movie soundtrack of Don Gorske: Mac Daddy, and the Lisa France feature film The Unseen.
His solo album Jumbo came together at a similar time, produced by George Recile (Bob Dylan, James Brown) and Anthony Krizan (Spin Doctors) it featured the talents of the late Howie Wyeth, John Ginty (Sheryl Crow, Citizen Cope) and Andy Goessling (Railroad Earth) and the song She’s Single Again was featured in the NBC show Ed. Back in Manhattan now Bill played at the typical places and hung out, worked and toured the UK with Jake Stigers and the Velvet Roots.
2007 also saw the release of Bill’s second solo album Bread on the Waters; produced by Lincoln Schleifer it features the varied talents of Larry Campbell, Marc Shulman, Danny Louis and Denny McDermott and has received universal praise from critics. Following tradition the song Yelling at You in My Head has already shown up in the new Anna Holtzman documentary, Subway Dreams, and Bill recently recorded the title track to the new Morgan Spurlock documentary Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden with Folkfoot partner Michael Parrish, touring it an other songs around the UK in 2009.
“...a beautiful record of great songs that won't let go.”
“...real Americana music.”
“...the voice and pen of a true artist, with a great sense of melody.”
“Well produced, heartfelt songs."
Booking and Publicity Enquiries
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Discography
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