In 1965, Billy Hamilton began playing music in his hometown of Hamilton, Ohio, USA, with his first band, The Morticians. When they played their first job, a party in a friend’s basement, they knew three songs: “House of the Rising Sun,” “Satisfaction,” and “Peter Gunn,” all of which they performed as instrumentals. When someone finally came up with a microphone, Billy Hamilton put down his guitar to sing “out front” and more or less remained in that position, playing harmonica and occasional rhythm guitar, for the next 40 years. Through the late 60s and early 70s, he fronted various rock cover bands in the Cincinnati area, working outside music in the late 70s, when the popularity of “disco” clubs made work for local live bands scarce. In early 1980s, he formed Derriere, a rock/pop band that was very popular in the Cincinnati-Dayton area for a few years. With this group, Hamilton recorded his first 45-rpm single in 1982. The “A” side was a cover version of the Beau Brummels’ hit “Just a Little,” while the “B” side featured one of Hamilton’s early compositions, “Give It Hell.” The recorded was released “very quietly” on Hamilton’s own Derriere label. In 85, Hamilton moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he stumbled onto radio station WQBH-AM and began listening exclusively to the blues records spun live at local clubs by DJ Jay Butler. “Since that time, I never really played anything but blues, soul, and R&B,” says Hamilton. Feeling that he had found his proper niche in music, he began listening to more and more blues masters and worked to develop his harp skills, which to that point had been “extremely average.” In 1987, Billy Hamilton went to London, England, where the Billy Hamilton Band played 60s soul and R&B in local pubs. They recorded a few demos, which they shopped around to British labels. But the record companies at that time were more interested in “image” bands like A Flock of Seagulls or Milli Vanilli. “They told us we were good,” says Hamilton, “maybe ‘too good.’” The early ‘90s saw Billy Hamilton return to the Cincinnati-Dayton, Ohio, area, where he fronted the White Boys Blues Band for a few years. They were very successful on a local level, but their demos of Hamilton’s originals elicited little response from U.S. blues record labels. Except for a very brief stint with the Long Island Blues Band in New York City in 2000, Hamilton worked outside music until 2001, when he founded Billy Hamilton and the Lowriders in Cincinnati. This group played blues, soul, and R&B, including an increasing number of Hamilton’s originals, throughout southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky for five years. With the Lowriders, Hamilton recorded three CDs: Blues/Soul/R&B (2002), Live at the Oxford Music Festival (2005), and Campesino Blues (2006)—all on his own Derriere label. The first two records include a mix of covers and Hamilton’s originals, while the third is Hamilton’s first all-original record. His song “My Baby Must Have Died” was included on a compilation CD released by British label Funkee Fish in 2004, while another, “I Sold Your Ring Today,” is featured on a 2006 CD sampler from California jazz-blues label Network-Pacific. Armed with these recordings, much unrecorded original material, and 40 years of experience, Billy Hamilton left America in January of 2006 to pursue his career in Europe. He is currently based in Bratislava, Slovakia, a city centrally located within reasonable traveling distance of Italy, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, and other European centers where American blues, soul, and R&B thrive. In addition to club dates in Bratislava, he tours regulary in Poland and is slated to record an album on Drycastle Records in 2007 with Italian group the Blues Collective. Billy Hamilton may be contacted and records may be ordered through his website, www.thelowridersband.com. Booking inquiries may be directed to lowridersband@hotmail.com.