Bill Heid

Keyboardist/vocalist Bill Heid was born August 11, 1948, in Pittsburgh, PA. A natural and virtuosic musician who was inspired to play jazz and blues by listening to the radio, he played in both piano and organ groups. His brother is the well-respected drummer and producer George Heid. Originally influenced by Jimmy Smith and Don Patterson, Heid heard the chitlin' circuit greats at the Hurricane Bar, including Smith and Patterson, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. Down the street at the Crawford Grill were the jazz bands led by Freddie Hubbard, Max Roach, Gene Harris, Bobby Timmons, and Wynton Kelly. On occasion he would sit in with some of these groups and pester them for information. Spending time in Chicago and later in New York, he met and hung out with his mentor, Larry Young, often visiting the family-owned Newark Club in Young's hometown of Newark, NJ. He was also privy to playing with the best organ drummers like Joe Dukes and Billy James. And he heard the local contingent of jazz greats like Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, Erroll Garner, George Benson, Eddie Jefferson, Mary Lou Williams, and Stanley Turrentine. His quest for musical knowledge found him on the road when in 1963, in search of rare 78-rpm rhythm & blues records, he began a journey/career of hitchhiking. He did this in the contiguous 48 states of the U.S.; through Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and China; and to the Thailand/Cambodia border. His over 400,000 documented miles of thumbing a ride gained Heid a spot in The Guinness Book of World Records. Some of his journeys led him to the so-called chicken houses and organ rooms of major cities, where he interned with Jimmy Witherspoon, Jimmy Ponder, Sonny Stitt, Grant Green, David "Fathead" Newman, Ira Sullivan, and Mickey...