Billy McDaniel - Lead Vocals / Guitar
I fell in love with the guitar at the age of 14 when I saw one of my mother's friends playing "Kansas City" on his Fender Strat guitar. I had never seen anyone play the guitar in person before, and remember being amazed as I watched his fingers glide up and down the fretboard. When I asked him if "I" could learn the guitar, he explained that anyone could learn, it just takes practice.
So I got myself a cheap electric guitar and practice is exactly what I did. I had a lot of enthusiasm and wanted to be the best! So a typical day for me consisted of about 12 hours of guitar. In the first 5 years or so, I could hardly put the instrument down.
I experimented with both originals and covers throughout my career as a musician. I've performed in a variety of local cover bands from the age of 16 until I was about 21 years old. From there, I began writing original material with peers in the music scene for a couple of years until I found my own niche as an acoustic solo artist.
As an acoustic performer, I learned many hundreds of cover songs in the rock genre. My singing propelled as I continued entertaining small venues across Maine. Before long I became known as a human jukebox capable of playing just about any song from memory.
In recent years, I have fallen in love with Rockabilly music. It all started at a jam party with friends. We were all jamming on traditional blues songs when someone started playing "Stray Cat Strut". For whatever reason, nobody could really figure out the chords, and I, being a guy who loves a challenge, took it upon myself to learn the song and add it to my own acoustic set list. This was merely the first of many rockabilly hits that I added for the next year or so.
I started learning some Elvis Presley songs and discovered for the first time why Elvis became the King of Rock-n-Roll. Soon, I became entranced, and would stop at nothing to improve my rockabilly guitar chops and put together a classy 3-piece rockabilly band.