![]() He also played and sang with choirs and bands throughout his time at Grant High School, including musicals such as Brigadoon, West Side Story, and Fiddler on the Roof. Bill spent the majority of his secondary school years in front of a piano, and also learned piano tuning and repair to boot. So when that Sting film thing came out, he already could play most of the score, impressing the masses who cared enough for that kind of thing. This made him sort of a geeky star in Junior High School as well. By fourteen, he had learned around half of the Scott Joplin catalog and most of Elton John's and Billy Joel's, and had been the choir accompanist for at least three years. This made him sort of a geeky star in elementary school, especially when rendering the big old-fashioned hit of that time, Raindrops are Falling On My Head (Bacharach and David). ![]() By the age of eleven, Bill was equally versed in Beethoven, Bacharach, Beatles, and Bawdy Ragtime songs. The budding musician quickly took hold of the instrument (but still could not lug it down the hall), and was soon demonstrating his skills at The Old Mill, Merrily Merrily, Little Sonata in G, and Yes Sir That's My Baby. At a time when The Beatles, Beach Boys and Herb Alpert were making it big, Bill absorbed the influences of both Rock and Roll and Traditional Jazz, plus its direct ancestor ragtime. Crawling inside of the sounds of these wonderful records, the trauma around him went away, because ragtime was pure happiness. He immediately immersed himself into these few worn pieces of vinyl and began a journey into the metaphorical rabbit hole of syncopated desires. At the age of nearly 6, Bill's parents divorced, and his dad left behind some 10 inch discs of the Firehouse Five Plus Two, Frankie Carle, Joe Fingers" Carr (aka Lou Busch), and Paul Lingle, all full of Ragtime, Honky-Tonk, and Dixieland-style music. Television was still mostly broadcast in black and white, Disneyland had just added some of their best attractions to date, and the first ragtime revival and honky-tonk craze was nearing an end.He was obviously exposed to the piano at a very early age, as indicated in the shot shown to the left, a moment that, at 2, he still fails to remember. William Edwards slid into the world in Southern California at a time when there were 49 states in the USA (he owns a flag with a 7x7 star field), Richard Nixon was starting preparations for his designs on a White House bid, Bill at the piano at 2 years, 2 months. ![]()
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