BILL HEID

Born in Pittsburgh, keyboard/vocalist Bill Heid has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, South America, Europe, and the Far East, including a three year stay in Japan. From 1965 through the mid-70’s, he worked the Hammond B-3 organ “chitlin clubs” with his own groups and with jazz greats such as Sonny Stitt, David “Fathead” Newman, Grachan Monchur, Mickey Roker, Joe Dukes, Roger Humphries, Rodney Whitaker, Robert Hurst, Grant Green, Jimmy Ponder, Bruce Foreman, and Henry Johnson, appearing on two Johnson albums for MCA/Impulse. From 1975 to 1984, based in Chicago, Bill toured with blues greats Jimmy Witherspoon, John Lee Hooker, Son Seals, and Fenton Robinson, playing on two albums with Robinson, two with KoKo Taylor, and another with Roy Buchanan for Alligator Records. From 1963 through 1996, Heid pursued another “career” of sorts. He hitchhiked in the 48 continental states, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and to the Thailand/Cambodia border, earning a place in the Guinness Book Of World Records. Accurately documenting exactly 400,000 miles, he told of some of his adventures on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1985.

http://theatreorgans.com/grounds/artists/heid/

Jazz Tuesdays

Jazz Tuesdays is a weekly event featuring great jazz musicians from all over the state of Michigan. Each week brings in a different guest artist and a new experience.

Pianist and organist Bill Heid came of age in the crucible that was Pittsburgh in its jazz heyday, hanging out at legendary Hill District clubs like the Hurricane Bar and the Crawford Grill. All the jazz greats regularly played in town back in the sixties and young Bill took every opportunity to sit in and learn from these masters.

Bill took these lessons and experiences and headed West to Detroit and Chicago, where he built a solid blues resume, touring and recording as a pianist with Jimmy Witherspoon, Koko Taylor, Alberta Adams, Fenton Robinson, and many others. He also played jazz piano on two major Impulse!/MCA recordings for Chicago guitarist Henry Johnson, who called Bill’s piano playing “brilliant”, and adds that Bill “…brings fire, excitement and a feeling of the blues to any recording that he appears on.”

It is as an organist though that Bill became better known, recording as a leader on several outstanding jazz organ dates in the mid to late nineties for the Muse/Westside and Savant labels. Bill’s organ sound is at once gritty and sophisticated and is flavored with Bill’s idiosyncratic style and unique vernacular. Now, after having spent a number of years working in Japan and touring all over the world for the U.S. State Department as a Jazz Ambassador, Bill is back stateside where he can be heard on organ and piano engagements at various venues in the Washington, D.C. area.

Bill is joined onstage by the great Ann Arbor bassist Paul Keller, along with Jazz Tuesdays host Jeff Shoup on drums.