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 bass Bond Street Founding Member Joined Blues Union in 1989 (Bond Street precursor) Previous
Bands Include: Current
Bands Include:
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Bill Uhlig's echocardiogram might sound very much like a walking blues bass line. "When I was about eight or nine years old, I'd listen to my little transistor radio in bed at night, holding it close to my ear so my parents wouldn't hear it. One night, I picked up the skip from "Border Radio" XERB out of Tijuana, Mexico. Wolfman Jack was playing something by B.B King, and it struck me that I didn't just hear the bass part, I felt it. It felt just like my heartbeat." In short order, Bill switched from violin to the acoustic bass, and continued playing in school bands. In his teens, he purchased his first electric bass -- the very instrument that still plays him today. Bill began his professional music career with The Impacts in October of 1964, at the age of 14. His first real gig was a high school after-game dance in Rainier, Oregon. The Impacts went on to become quite popular, with a handful of regional number one radio hits, including one penned by Dick St. John of Dick and DeeDee fame, Sunshine Day, which knocked the Beatles out of the #1 spot in the Southwest Washington region. Serving as a frequent back up band to regional favorites Paul Revere and the Raiders opened up the opportunity to join them on the road, touring behind the Raider's then-current hit, Hungry, and promoting their national television show, Where the Action Is. This tour went from San Diego on up the coast to Vancouver, B.C., stopping at most major concert venues of the day. In their time, The Impacts also opened for such popular 60's groups as Sonny & Cher, Young Rascals, The Wailers, The Sonics, Don & the Goodtymes, Them (with Van Morrison), Chuck Berry (serving as his backup band), Bo Diddley (also as backup band), Albert Collins, and Jimi Hendrix (before he left the Pacific Northwest and became famous). In addition, for three years, they served as backup band and toured extensively with Dick and DeeDee, whose national hits included Mountains High and Thou Shalt Not Steal. Somewhere along the way, the band changed their name to The Impact Express. Their recordings captured the attention of notorious Hollywood A&R man Reb Foster, who came up to the Northwest to audition the band for a group he was forming -- a group that, sans the Impacts, later became Three Dog Night. The band slowly fizzled out after that as members left for college, got married, or otherwise scattered. Some of their recordings, as testament to musicianship and the lasting appeal of the songs, appear on a handful of compilation releases: Green Green Field appears on Sixties Rebellion Vol. 16 (1999); Don't You Dare on Tymes Gone By (1998) and Class Of '66! (1995); Green Green Field and Don't You Dare on Bad Vibrations, Vol. 2 (1999). In addition, the band is included in Don Rogers' book, Dance Halls, Armories and Teen Fairs, 1988. In 1972, traces of the Impacts were instrumental in forming the band Bodhi -- a proto-punk/Northwest grunge band fueled by the song-writing of then 19-year-old Chris Newman, who would later go on to lead European and Northwest cult favorites, Napalm Beach and Snowbud and the Flower People. Bodhi quickly became regional underground darlings, performing in rough biker bars and seedy strip clubs. In the midst of creative, marital, and financial chaos, they disbanded in 1975. That summer, Bill suffered the loss of one finger on his left hand, and the partial loss of another. He assumed his musical career was over until the late mandolin player Mark Hirsch quit the popular bluegrass band, Silver Mountain to form Hawg Wild, insisting that Bill come onboard as acoustic bassist. "A debt," Bill says, "I will never be able to repay." Hawg Wild played for a period of time, slowly morphing back into Silver Mountain with Bill still on bass. This began an ongoing love affair with acoustic music of all kinds, which continues to this day. Mark's untimely death put an end to Silver Mountain. Numerous side band gigs filled his time before the formation of Cheezy Substance, the quintessential Mayger Beach kegger band. This group rapidly gobbled up many questionable performance opportunities in Northwest Oregon, due to their onstage antics and prodigious capacity for intoxicants. It was in Cheezy Substance that Bill met his lovely wife, Myrna Rowe, the band's singer. They were quickly married, and remain so to this day. Myrna brought with her a son, who would prove to be a major talent in his own right. Cheezy Substance slowly ran out of steam, due to the above-mentioned intoxicants (of course, Myrna was and remains pure as the driven snow). This freed Bill up to take the place of yet another infamous drunk, thus capturing the bass chair of what was to become Bond Street -- a chair to which he stubbornly clings. For a number of years, you could also hear Bill in Bond Street spinoff band, Los Comatosos, with Scheckie Metzner and Spud Siegel. They recorded a highly-popular CD in 1999. From 2001-2002, Bill was a member of the now-defunct Michael Henry Blues Project with drummer John Sechler, former bandmate in Bodhi, thus closing the circle. Bill also provided bass for Retta & the Smart Fellas, helping them to garner a number of awards and write-ups in Western Swing interest publications, both stateside and abroad. The band enjoyed a long run, during which they built an impressive following and recorded two CD's. Currently (updated March 2007), when not providing Bond Street's solid backbeat, Bill appears with a handful of other musicians, such as...
Recently, "I enjoyed an opportunity to embarrass myself, playing with jazz luminary Dave Frishberg." From 60's rock 'n' roll to bluegrass, R&B and blues to acoustic Latin cumbias, punk to Western swing, and then some, it appears Bill is covering all the basses.
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