Loading detailsβ¦
Artist
Billy Adams
12+ albums
rockabillyoldies50sAllsunbilly
about
Billy Adams (Willie Murray Adams, Redbush, Kentucky, March 6, 1940 - March 30, 2019) was an American rockabilly singer, guitarist and songwriter. Born in Redbush, a tiny hamlet in Johnson County, Kentucky, Billy's father worked as a coal miner in the Van Lear coal mine (the same one mentioned in Loretta Lynn's "Coal Miner's Daughter"). His mother kept the house, and cared for 14 children. Money was scarce, and food was often in short supply for the family. It was in those extreme, hard times that Billy's interest in music and writing began to surface, and he began to dream dreams that were far greater than the poverty that shackled his family to the Appalachian hills. Billy was influenced by hillbilly artists such as Bill Monroe, the blue yodeler Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Merle Travis, and Moon Mullican, with songs and sounds that came into the house from an old battery operated radio. On Saturday nights, the broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry sparked images of strange and fanciful places in young Billy's mind. He recalls, "I vividly remember many times looking up over the tall slender pine whose tiny green needles seemed to pierce the blue-green sky, and dreaming of the day when I would play my very own guitar - like the singers that I heard on the radio - and it would take me to places far over the hills." Sadly, the reality was that Billy's family could not afford to buy real musical instruments, so he and his older brother Charles found other ways to express th
