My friend, Bill Wilson

Discussion of history's greatest guitar player.

My friend, Bill Wilson

Postby Paul Yandell » Fri Apr 15, 2011 5:11 pm

After Bill died, I got to thinking about things he and I had done over the years. One thing that Bill should get credit for is getting Bigsby to start making the Chet bracket again. Back in the 60s, Bill had a real nice Gretsch CG and I borrowed it from time to time. He wanted to get one of those Chet handles so he contacted Bigsby and they told him that they did not make it any more that they had lost the cast -- but if he could send one to them, they would recast it and start producing it again, which he did and that's how Bigsby back making the Chet bracket again for the wire handle. It's a nice little story and I thought everyone would be interested in it. Thx Paul
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Re: My friend, Bill Wilson

Postby guitarchuck » Fri Apr 15, 2011 5:39 pm

Paul,
That's nice info to know. Thanks for sharing that with us. I hope your health is improving. Good to see you here again.
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Re: My friend, Bill Wilson

Postby thenorm » Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:11 pm

On a similar vein...

Over the years I’ve been collecting most of Paul Yandell’s posts on the Chetboard. I’m sure others have too but I combined mine and blended them into a format that makes information retrieval fairly easy. You have seen the results when I post answers to questions as I copy/paste fragments “from the archive”. I’ve been doing this more lately as Paul has a full plate right now with medical issues.
Twice a year I have been sending updates of the archive to Paul.

Here is what I propose…
I know many of you have had face to face conversations with Paul that reflect his ideas and his humor and his outlook on guitaring and on Chet.

I’d like you folks to send me quips and reminisces of actual conversations you had with Paul and what he actually said, if you can remember. Paul has a sense of humor that, if anything, was dryer than Chet’s I think, and I know he had a lot of quiet wisdom in things he said to people and I’d like to see them added to the archive.

Or post them here on this site to share and I’ll just copy them from here.

Even if you don’t think you’re much of a writer, send them along anyway. I’ll edit them and check the spelling and all that and add it to the archive that I send to Paul and his family.

Understand... I don’t want repetitious statements saying what a great guitarist he is. We know he’s a great guitarist but we also know that too much of that kind of thing makes him uncomfortable.

So please send me your stories (or post them) of what Paul said to you, what you talked about and what he said about it so I can gather these up.
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Re: My friend, Bill Wilson

Postby Roger Pratt » Fri Apr 15, 2011 9:39 pm

That's a good story about old "Rip" Wilson. I only got to meet Rip at CAAS but Paul told me what a great guy he was and I could see that when I talked to him. Here are some pictures of Rip that I took at CAAS.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v718/rpratt01/?action=view&current=RipPaul.jpg
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v718/rpratt01/?action=view&current=000_0279.jpg
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v718/rpratt01/?action=view&current=000_0217.jpg
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Re: My friend, Bill Wilson

Postby Richard Hudson » Fri Apr 15, 2011 11:29 pm

Paul, thank you for telling us about Bill. He and I had some good times together too. He was a lot of fun to joke around with. Thank you, Roger, also for the pics. That brought back a lot of good memories.
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Re: My friend, Bill Wilson

Postby BillB » Sat Apr 16, 2011 12:25 am

I remember Rip. That's a nice story of how he got Bigsby's attention about the Chet arm. He was quite a character when he used to post on the Chetboard. I was at that CAAS in 2006 and had the chance to meet him, and I really enjoyed visiting with him. It is sad to me that he is gone, especially as I think about those who were closest to him.

Bill B.
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Re: My friend, Bill Wilson

Postby BillB » Sat Apr 16, 2011 12:35 am

Norm,
When I went to my first CAAS in 2006, where I met Bill Wilson, I remember something that Paul said to a youngster. This young man came up to Paul's table with his guitar, and asked, "Are you Paul Yandell?" Paul replied, "I'm what's left of him."

The rest of that story is that Paul asked the kid to play something, and I think he may have played some Jerry Reed. Paul showed him a better way to play part of the song, and then he took a look at his guitar. Before it was all over, Paul had helped him to get his guitar to play better, and then they snuck off for a little guitar lesson away from all of the crowd. I thought it was great how he went about helping that young man, and I'm sure that he has done that sort of thing many times over the years.

Bill B.
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Re: My friend, Bill Wilson

Postby thenorm » Sat Apr 16, 2011 12:48 am

excellent...thanks
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