Biography
During the Great Depression, music lifted Bill Neely out of his beginnings as the son of an impoverished sharecropper and into a long-lasting role as a respected performer whose work reached across many decades. The same pursuit carried the Collin County native from his Texas origins to Paris and Washington, D.C., where he appeared at such distinguished sites as the Smithsonian Institution. These accomplishments stood out for a young man forced to quit school after the eighth grade and begin working at fifteen.
Throughout the 1930s his first jobs took him on rail journeys with crews employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the federal program President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created to assist the masses of unemployed citizens. Neely continued moving from place to place on other government-sponsored projects until he joined the U.S. Army in 1939 and remained in uniform until 1943. Although he had already started writing songs, wartime duties postponed further progress.
His attraction to music surfaced much earlier, at age thirteen, when country star Jimmie Rodgers gave him a guitar lesson. After his discharge Neely made his home in Arizona, then moved six years later to Austin, Texas, where he met restauranteur and musician Kenneth Threadgill. Threadgill scheduled Neely for regular Wednesday performances that continued through the entire decade of the 1950s.
In Austin during 1968 Neely met acoustic guitarist Larry Kirbo; the two worked together for nearly twelve years and shared a Smithsonian Institution stage. Other artists with whom Neely performed include Pete Seeger, Mance Lipscomb, and Janis Joplin. His only recording, the 1974 album Blackland Farm Boy, appeared after decades of activity.
Late in 1989 Neely joined a small delegation of Texas musicians who traveled to Paris to perform at the Maison des Cultures du Monde. Documentary Arts issued a cassette of selected performances produced by Alan Govenar; the recording also presents Osceola Mays and John Burrus. Neely receives prominent placement in the video Living Texas Blues.
Outside music he supported his household as a truck driver, chef, and restauranteur. In 1948 he married Bobbie Hamilton and helped raise a stepchild together with four additional children. He died of leukemia in 1990.
Throughout the 1930s his first jobs took him on rail journeys with crews employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the federal program President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created to assist the masses of unemployed citizens. Neely continued moving from place to place on other government-sponsored projects until he joined the U.S. Army in 1939 and remained in uniform until 1943. Although he had already started writing songs, wartime duties postponed further progress.
His attraction to music surfaced much earlier, at age thirteen, when country star Jimmie Rodgers gave him a guitar lesson. After his discharge Neely made his home in Arizona, then moved six years later to Austin, Texas, where he met restauranteur and musician Kenneth Threadgill. Threadgill scheduled Neely for regular Wednesday performances that continued through the entire decade of the 1950s.
In Austin during 1968 Neely met acoustic guitarist Larry Kirbo; the two worked together for nearly twelve years and shared a Smithsonian Institution stage. Other artists with whom Neely performed include Pete Seeger, Mance Lipscomb, and Janis Joplin. His only recording, the 1974 album Blackland Farm Boy, appeared after decades of activity.
Late in 1989 Neely joined a small delegation of Texas musicians who traveled to Paris to perform at the Maison des Cultures du Monde. Documentary Arts issued a cassette of selected performances produced by Alan Govenar; the recording also presents Osceola Mays and John Burrus. Neely receives prominent placement in the video Living Texas Blues.
Outside music he supported his household as a truck driver, chef, and restauranteur. In 1948 he married Bobbie Hamilton and helped raise a stepchild together with four additional children. He died of leukemia in 1990.
Albums
