Bill Nesbitt — Biographical Information

I first picked up a guitar at age 7 and was playing "My Bonny" by the end of the first week. Then I got bored and put it down till age 13 when I started getting interested in girls. Then I would devour entire albums, such as "Tea for the Tillerman" and "Teaser and the Firecat" by Cat Stevens, "Harvest" by Neil Young, "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" (the album) by Jim Croce, along with various CSN, James Taylor and, of course, The Beatles.

I had always been interested in banjo, so in 1974, for my 14th birthday, my aunt bought me one in St. Louis. I spent a lot of time plunking around on it and didn't learn any proper technique till years later.

My dad always wanted me to learn to play mandolin, but I waited until after his death in 1979 to pick it up — one of the major regrets of my life so far. I think it's ironic that that is the instrument I've played most in bands, and whatever local notoriety I might enjoy is on that instrument.

Along the way I've also developed a certain proficiency on upright bass and can hold my own in a jam session.

Currently I play mandolin and sing baritone and bass (plus an occasional lead) with the Josh Love Band in the central Arkansas area. That band Web site can be found here.>>

I was mandolinist and lead singer for The Old School Bluegrass Band from 1990 till 2008. I also played lots of festivals over a 12-year period (roughly 1986 to 1998) with a band called Delta Grass. Before that I played one very busy year with the Stone County Boys. The leader of that band, a fellow named Dave Leatherman, is still playing and singing out east. More recently, I played upright bass with a four-man acoustic country band called Roarin' Creek, and we won the True Value Country Music Showdown for Little Rock and all of Arkansas. We went to Tallahassee to compete in the regionals and were beaten by a 19-year-old blonde yodeler.

I grew up playing folk and bluegrass music, so I consider myself a folk musician and probably always will. But having been a Christian for more than thirty years, playing to and for Him will always be of paramount importance — both in my private walk and in the public arena, whatever form that may take.

Like most visual artists, I don't even remember learning how to draw, I was so young when I started. I always wanted to be a "commercial artist" (along with "studio musician") because I thought it sounded cool. I saw Darren Stevens on "Bewitched" showing clients his ad markups and thought that was neat. Now I do art for the same reasons I do music: about one-third for the money and two-thirds to feed the addiction. Like music, Color & Design gets into one's blood.

One additional interest I've developed in the past few years is hiking 14,000-plus-foot mountains in Colorado (known to the anointed at "fourteeners"). The picture at the top of this page is of me and my then 18-year-old son Evan atop Quandary Peak (elev. 14,265 feet). I plan to add more hiking stories to my Journals page soon as I go. So far we've done seven out of 54 in Colorado, so I have miles to go before I sleep. I've got some videos of these hikes posted on my YouTube channel.