Bill Shelton

My Musical History

So, how did I get to where I’m at? Musically, I mean? A little background first. My father had a degree in music, could play most instruments at least a little, but mostly enjoyed singing and choral pursuits. Mom has a beautiful voice, at 100 years old still plays piano, and the two of them sang together for church, weddings, funerals and the like for years. So, to start with, I had built in music teachers as I was growing up.

When I was around 10 or so, as well as I can remember, mom started teaching me to play piano. That didn’t last too long. Not my thing, I guess, although I wish now I had kept up with that. Soon after that trial, Dad started me on clarinet. That was his primary band instrument in college. I played clarinet, and later saxophone, through middle school and into high school until I couldn’t see eye to eye with the band teacher and decided I’d had enough. During this period I also sang in our church choir. Couldn’t get away from that especially when your dad was the choir director. In college, I quickly gravitated to the Music Department and sang in the college chorus, madrigal singers, and road show troop. What a hoot! I guess I was a ham at heart because I really enjoyed that, especially performing.

From college I joined the Air Force and it was during that first year that I bought a guitar from my roommate. This was about 1960. An Alvarez classical guitar, $50! I played around with it, took lessons now and then, but never really got serious about it. I still have that guitar, along with about 30 other stringed instruments of various types. After returning from Viet Nam in 1968 we ended up in Austin, TX. For some reason I got the urge to do something musical so I auditioned to sing in the Austin Civic Choir. They accepted me and that kind of jump started my music interest again.

From Texas to Italy to Oklahoma and no musical activity to speak of. Then in 1978 we moved to Washington State. I began to get interested in the guitar again, took some lessons in fingerpicking and bluegrass/folk style music, got involved with local musicians and slowly began to build some skills. Then came my barbershop era. I must have gone to a concert or something because I became captivated with barbershop music and eventually joined the Vocal Gentry, a barbershop chorus of about 50 men, based in Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA. We were a very good chorus, won several competitions and competed in the annual international barbershop competition. If you have never performed before an audience of 8,000 wildly enthusiastic barbershop fans, you should try it sometime. I sang with this chorus for 10 years! What a time!

I continued to dabble in the bluegrass world, playing guitar and banjo now and then, but I could never settle down to one thing. I had always enjoyed the sound of bagpipes, but one day I saw a pipe band and solo pipers up close and decided I could learn to do that. Taught myself as much as I could, found a teacher, got good enough for him to ask me to join his band, bought a set of pipes and started playing with Kell’s Irish Pipes and Drums. And that was the beginning of about 25 years of piping solo and in three bands. Still doing it as a matter of fact, and enjoying every bit of it.

In 2001 I retired and moved to the Columbia River Gorge. Continued piping, of course, and one day met the local high school band teacher in a local pub. He was and is a professional trumpet player. We got to talking music, he found out I had played clarinet, over 40 years ago, and said I should take it up again. Thought about it but was pretty sure I didn’t have many clarinet skills after 40 years. But, I went to one of his band rehearsals anyway and the next thing I knew I was playing in his Dixieland band. Still doing it, F. Scott Fedora is the name of the band. In the meantime he became my bagpipe student and we play pipes together to this day.

Several years ago I got interested in ukuleles. I joined a group of other ukulele players in the gorge. I also picked up the banjo and guitar again. Decided to try tenor guitar and really enjoyed that. Easier to play than a 6 string. Joined a couple of bluegrass/folk music jams, began building my own repertoire of folk, old country, singer/songwriter music, Americana. And now I perform locally whenever I can, singing my tunes and playing tenor guitar or ukulele.

For now I am happy with the music styles I have chosen to play, but I am continually digging around turning up new tunes to sing and perform. Wonder what will be next?