Bill Ellingboe is a songwriter and musician from Michigan. He grew up in Atlanta, a small town in the northeast corner of the state. While attending college at Notre Dame, he helped form the infamous bar band Stomper Bob & The 4 x 4’s, which eventually evolved into Umphrey’s McGee after his departure. It was also during this time that Bill began to discover the music that would leave an indelible stamp on his musical style. “This was the onset of grunge, and while I had some cool Andrew Wood bootlegs, I just wasn’t that into it. At a music store in South Bend, on a whim, I bought John Prine’s anthology Great Days, and Steve Earle’s Train a Comin’. I had never heard of either of these artists, but I thought the albums looked cool. The honesty, humor, and poignancy of the lyrics struck a chord, so to speak. It was also around this time that I heard Johnny Cash sing Bird On A Wire on the Jon Stewart talk show. It blew my mind. I bought all the Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash music I could find.”
After graduating, Bill spent time in the Air Force, mostly in California, but with a short and memorable stay in North Dakota. “I learned how to write songs in North Dakota. I think it was my first venture into the reality of the world, and I tried to understand my place in it. Not that I figured it out, but I thought I started asking the right questions.” Bill fell in love with Santa Barbara County, and would go on to spend just under a decade in the area, save for a 6-month stint in North Hollywood that kicked the crap out of him.
“In Santa Barbara, I met lifelong friends and had the opportunity to play with some of these friends who also happened to be great musicians. I also got to play bass with a kick-ass country band called Borrowed Time.”
In 2007 Bill moved to Las Vegas. He continued playing music, and by this time he had begun playing exclusively as a solo artist. He moved back to Michigan in 2009, settling in the beach community of Grand Haven. Here he has kept up a busy schedule of playing music locally, with periodic forays throughout the region. “I’ve had the opportunity to play in front of crowds ranging from 1 to 7,000, and every gig is an opportunity to connect.” In 2015, Bill released the single Beer Sales, a sardonic yet loving acceptance of the role of the solo cover artist in the hospitality/entertainment industry. A collection of songs, Cold Water, Part 1 was released in April 2016.
SOURCE: Official Bio
LINKS:
http://www.billellingboe.com
http://www.facebook.com/billyellingboe
http://twitter.com/BillEllingboe
