Bill E. Garner

Bill was raised in the church listening to gospel music being played and sang. His uncle was a great guitarist who played in the church ?orchestra?.

Bill loved the sound of the guitar and very early on wanted to play like his uncle Wayne. The Garner family formed a quartet consisting of Mom & Dad and two sisters. At age four, bill tarted playing rhythm guitar for the

quartet. When the oldest sister married, Bill moved into the quartet singing tenor and still playing the guitar. The Garner Family became well known in the greater San Juaquin Valley as the performed at various churches

and church related programs all around the valley. They performed weekly on radio KTIP, Porterville and were much requested at all of the church doings and the radio shows. Traveling musicians heard the quartet and visited the radio station often, offering Bill various jobs playing with many different bands. At age 14, Bill started his career outside of the gospel music when He first started playing with Richard Phillips and the Rainbow Valley Ranch Boys. Bill was always listening to the radio and the sounds of the Bob

Wills and Hank Thompson bands caught his attention and he fast became a Western Swing fan. From that time on, every thing he played had that ?swing flavor? to it as he began to emulate such greats as Porky Freeman, Jr.

Bernard, Jimmy Wyble and Hank Garland. All of the guitar greats he could find, he studied their stylings and learned as much as he could about their kind of music. Les Paul and Chet Atkins both greatly influenced Bill as he

learned both the finger style and the Les Paul style of playing. He tried to imitate the Les Paul sound of multi-tracking by playing all of the parts at once, thus developing the style that he has played with such success for

so long, the triad three part harmony lead style of playing

In 1953, Bill Started playing with traveling groups from Nashville, on their west coast ?swings? working with such names as the Wilburn Brothers, Jimmy Dickens, Joe and Rose Lee Maphis, Skeets McDonald, Carl Belew, Patsy Cline,

Patti Page, and so many others to mention. He entered the military in 1955 and spent three years in Germany where he played music with a band there. He joined a country band that was based at Rhein Main Air Force Base in Frankfurt, Germany and eventually took over leadership of the band. While

playing with this band, he met Benny Kubiak and Benny was invited to join the group. This band was very popular in Germany, had a weekly radio show on AFN Frankfurt and entertained the GI?s for three years. Upon Bill?s return to the US, he joined with the Lawton Jiles band in Delano, California. This band worked around the area, frequently playing the Fresno

Barn, in Fresno, where the would back ?guest artists? each week they played.

Their guests consisted of the many artists that were regulars on the Compton Town Hall Party, as well as all of the Nashville and Louisiana Hayride artist that came thru the area. Bill also worked, during this time, at the famous Blackboard in Bakersfield where he became friends with all of the well known Bakersfield musicians such as Bill Woods, Fuzzy Owen, Red Simpson, Henry Sharp, Cousin Herb Henson, Bonnie Owens, Merle Haggard, Lewis Talley, Gene Moles, Larry Petree, George French, Don Markham, Biff Adams, Roy Nichols, Norm Hamlet, and many others with whom he played and recorded with. He worked the Los Angeles recording studios from off and on 1953 to 1978 when he moved back to Washington. He had first moved to Washington in 1962,

went back to California in 1973, returned to Washington in 1978. During his years in Washington, he recorded in the Bill Wylie recording studio, appeared on TV on the Jack River TV show in Tacoma, Washington, backed

traveling artists both on the TV show as well as various lodges and clubs around the greater Seattle area. During the Jack Rivers era, some of the more frequent artist to be booked by Rivers were Tex Williams, Tommy Duncan, Jimmy Wakely, Rusty Draper, and many others. One fiddle player that

Bill met and became good friends with, played many shows with is Billy Armstrong. The two Bills remain in close touch as good friends will. In 1985, Bill joined up with Johnny Wakely to form the Johnny Wakely band. This band worked as a four piece band and as a trio for ten years, until the accident put a stop to his playing for the time he spent in the hospital nine months. At that time, Johnny retired from the music business. Bill has spent his entire life in music, 55 years as a performing musician with 35 years dedicated to performing western swing music. He has served on the Seattle Western Swing Music Society board as a board member, vice president, and president. He suffered a setback in 1995 when he and his wife were involved in a traffic accident leaving Bill a paraplegic. Nerve damage

atrophied his hands to the point that he could no longer play as he used to, but he still performed as best he could, and still promoted Western Swing music. Bill was the instigator of the POWs in Seattle in 1992, and that show has become a yearly attraction and success. Bill was active when called upon to do what he could to further the Western Swing music interest and he continued to do all he could to insure this style of music was not

forgotten. His family will miss him beyond what ever words could tell as will all musicians who knew him.