Bill Perry

Veteran guitarist, singer, and songwriter Bill Perry stood out among modern blues artists for his inventive approach to storytelling, though a heart attack claimed his life in summer 2007 at age fifty. He first gained notice on the national blues circuit during the mid-nineties through Point Blank/Virgin. Raised in Chester, New York, Perry received his initial guitar at five and mastered the “Batman” theme amid a household steeped in music; his grandmother served as church organist while his father’s Jimmy Smith collection exposed him to guitarist Kenny Burrell. Early idols included Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Johnny Winter, Albert Collins, B. B. King, and Freddie King.

In notes prepared for a Blind Pig Records release, Perry outlined his relationship to tradition: “I love traditional blues and I listen to it at home a lot. But to play the really classic old blues stuff wouldn’t be natural for me, because I don’t come from that. I liked Johnny Winter and Eric Clapton because they turned blues around in their own way and made it popular. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

By thirteen he had already competed in a talent show, then fronted successive rock and blues-rock groups through high school as lead guitarist and vocalist. After graduation he relocated briefly to California and Colorado, sharpening a personal guitar style along the way. In 1988 he began supporting folksinger Richie Havens in trio settings, and the following year he joined Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, and Levon Helm of the Band for the twentieth-anniversary Woodstock tour of Europe.

A New York City club performance of Hendrix material one evening drew Havens’s attention; the singer requested Perry’s contact information and soon invited him on a first-ever flight to Japan. Extensive road time with Havens sharpened Perry’s songwriting, with travel supplying abundant material for new blues compositions.

His Pointblank/Virgin debut, Love Scars, appeared in 1996, followed in 1998 by Greycourt Lightning. When the label closed, Perry established a lasting association with Blind Pig Records. A 1999 live set, High Octane, issued on Car Wash Records, captured a night at the since-shuttered Manny’s Car Wash on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. An energetic Bishopstock Blues Festival appearance in England that same year led to Blind Pig’s interest; Fire It Up, co-produced by Jimmy Vivino, arrived in 2001, succeeded by Crazy Kind of Life in 2002, Raw Deal (produced by longtime New York scene colleague Popa Chubby), and the final album, Don’t Know Nothing About Love, in 2006. Though respected throughout New York City and New England blues circles, Perry encountered shrinking airplay opportunities on both commercial and public stations.

After Perry’s July 2007 death, Richie Havens told the Times-Herald Record in New York’s Hudson Valley, “He wrote songs that you could swear were written by Muddy Waters. I think he’s the best blues musician in the world, but he’s very shy when it comes to his music and I think that’s what drives him to do so well…he’ll tell you he’s just Bill Perry, but when he’s on-stage, he’s a monster.”