Biography
Born on August 11, 1948, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Bill Heid works as a keyboardist and vocalist. A naturally gifted and technically brilliant musician, he drew his initial inspiration for jazz and blues from radio broadcasts and performed in groups centered on both piano and organ. His sibling, the esteemed drummer and producer George Heid, pursued a parallel path in music. Early influences from Jimmy Smith and Don Patterson led Heid to catch performances by chitlin’ circuit standouts at the Hurricane Bar, where Smith, Patterson, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, and Dr. Lonnie Smith regularly appeared. A short distance away at the Crawford Grill, he absorbed sets from bands fronted by Freddie Hubbard, Max Roach, Gene Harris, Bobby Timmons, and Wynton Kelly.
He occasionally joined these ensembles onstage and pressed the musicians for technical insights. Time spent in Chicago and later New York brought him into close contact with his mentor Larry Young, including repeated visits to the family-run Newark Club in Young’s hometown of Newark, New Jersey. Heid also gained firsthand experience alongside premier organ drummers such as Joe Dukes and Billy James while encountering the city’s jazz figures, among them Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Erroll Garner, George Benson, Eddie Jefferson, Mary Lou Williams, and Stanley Turrentine.
In 1963 a search for rare 78-rpm rhythm & blues discs launched Heid on an extended period of hitchhiking that eventually spanned the contiguous forty-eight states, as well as Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, China, and the Thailand/Cambodia border. More than 400,000 miles of documented travel earned him an entry in The Guinness Book of World Records. Along the way he worked inside the so-called chicken houses and organ rooms of major cities, apprenticing with Jimmy Witherspoon, Jimmy Ponder, Sonny Stitt, Grant Green, David “Fathead” Newman, Ira Sullivan, and Mickey Roker, and serving as pianist for Don Patterson.
A relocation to Chicago immersed him in urban blues circles, where he performed or recorded with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and especially Son Seals, Koko Taylor, Fenton Robinson, and Roy Buchanan. He also completed two LPs and toured with contemporary jazz guitarist Henry Johnson. After settling in Detroit, Heid spent two decades leading his own ensembles, serving as music director for Johnnie Bassett’s Blues Insurgents to help revive the guitarist and vocalist’s career, and accompanying veteran singer Alberta Adams. During and after his Detroit years he created soundtracks for adult films in Los Angeles and toured worldwide as a jazz ambassador under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, with repeated visits to Japan and Vietnam. In August 2003 he extended his Pacific Rim travels to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Back on the East Coast he appeared regularly on organ and piano at venues throughout the Washington, D.C., region. Heid once remarked, “I can’t live a day without playing 1-4-5s,” a practice he combined with cool McCoy Tyner minor riffs, vicious funk songs in Japanese, and his own Talifunk style. He described his approach as “total war” and expressed gratitude for never having needed a day job. His distinctive slang, singular vocal phrasing, and risqué humor, fused with an abiding passion for baseball, established him as an entertainer nonpareil.
He occasionally joined these ensembles onstage and pressed the musicians for technical insights. Time spent in Chicago and later New York brought him into close contact with his mentor Larry Young, including repeated visits to the family-run Newark Club in Young’s hometown of Newark, New Jersey. Heid also gained firsthand experience alongside premier organ drummers such as Joe Dukes and Billy James while encountering the city’s jazz figures, among them Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Erroll Garner, George Benson, Eddie Jefferson, Mary Lou Williams, and Stanley Turrentine.
In 1963 a search for rare 78-rpm rhythm & blues discs launched Heid on an extended period of hitchhiking that eventually spanned the contiguous forty-eight states, as well as Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, China, and the Thailand/Cambodia border. More than 400,000 miles of documented travel earned him an entry in The Guinness Book of World Records. Along the way he worked inside the so-called chicken houses and organ rooms of major cities, apprenticing with Jimmy Witherspoon, Jimmy Ponder, Sonny Stitt, Grant Green, David “Fathead” Newman, Ira Sullivan, and Mickey Roker, and serving as pianist for Don Patterson.
A relocation to Chicago immersed him in urban blues circles, where he performed or recorded with Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and especially Son Seals, Koko Taylor, Fenton Robinson, and Roy Buchanan. He also completed two LPs and toured with contemporary jazz guitarist Henry Johnson. After settling in Detroit, Heid spent two decades leading his own ensembles, serving as music director for Johnnie Bassett’s Blues Insurgents to help revive the guitarist and vocalist’s career, and accompanying veteran singer Alberta Adams. During and after his Detroit years he created soundtracks for adult films in Los Angeles and toured worldwide as a jazz ambassador under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, with repeated visits to Japan and Vietnam. In August 2003 he extended his Pacific Rim travels to Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Back on the East Coast he appeared regularly on organ and piano at venues throughout the Washington, D.C., region. Heid once remarked, “I can’t live a day without playing 1-4-5s,” a practice he combined with cool McCoy Tyner minor riffs, vicious funk songs in Japanese, and his own Talifunk style. He described his approach as “total war” and expressed gratitude for never having needed a day job. His distinctive slang, singular vocal phrasing, and risqué humor, fused with an abiding passion for baseball, established him as an entertainer nonpareil.
Albums
