Bill, a former member of the New Christy
Minstrels, founded the River City Ramblers in
1960. He started performing at age 6 on the
accordion. After learning that a mistake on
accordion sounded terrible but a mistake on a
guitar was rock-and-roll, he switched to string
instruments as fast as he could.
He sang with the Portland Choirboys, Portland
Junior Symphonic Choir, Portland Symphonic
Choir, the Seattle Philharmonic Choir, Portland
State University's Choir, PSU's Madrigal
Singers and PSU's Singing Vikes, with whom he
toured with the USO.