His foray into song-writing began only recently during the recording of this, his first CD, at the urging of the project engineer, Rich Ayres. The “good” songwriters “borrow” from the greats and the “bad” song writers “steal” from them. With that in mind, his major influences: Chuck Brodsky, Leonard Cohen, Chris LeDoux , Woody and Arlo Guthrie are a great source of Americana to feed from. Billy is also playing piano on two boogie-blues songs to liven things up a bit. “ If my music makes you laugh or cry, then I’ve done my job”.

The Songs:

Blue Grass Blues: a true story about my last encounter at the blue grass festival (the “Bill Monroe Doctrine”)
This Cowboy’s Hat: a cover of a Chris LeDoux song- Chris Ivey is featured on dobro on both of these songs
Moe Berg:  a great story- one of Chuck Brodsky’s best songs (and there’s a lot of good one’s)
It Should’ve Been Me: a lighter note, a swing tune covered by Commander Cody          
America’s Intervention: I wrote this just before the election           

Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette: written by Merle Travis and Tex Williams – they don’t write ‘em like that anymore! (Chris Ivey, the steel player, performed this with Tex Williams)          

The Legend of Sidney: a story about Sidney Huntington, an Alaskan Native and his life on the Yukon. I stayed with Sidney’s son Roger for a short time and this was taken from Sidney’s biography “Shadows on the Koyukuk”
I Ain’t Drunk: I saw a band called Loaded Dice do this song a long time ago in Providence R.I.       
I Will Come for You: a touching story about an American soldier stationed in Europe during WW2- written by Randall Williams
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere: a cover of a Bob Dylan song- it was in the movie Easy Rider