Bill Neely (September 19, 1916 – March 22, 1990) was an American country singer-songwriter.

Bill Neely was born in Collin County, Texas. He was the son of sharecroppers. He grew up in McKinney. At thirteen he met his greatest musical influence, country singer Jimmie (James Charles) Rodgers, who gave him his first guitar lesson. Because of the depression, Neely dropped out of the eighth grade to look for work at the age of fifteen. He began working at Civilian Conservation Corps camps and traveling about the country on freight trains. Although he had begun composing his own music, his musical career was arrested for four years (1939–43) by service in the United States Army. In 1943 he moved to Arizona.
In 1949 he moved to Austin, where he met musician Kenneth Threadgill. Before long, Neely was a regularly-scheduled Wednesday-night act at Threadgill's restaurant, where he played for most of the 1950s. In 1968 he befriended another Austin musician, Larry Kirbo. The two played together for nearly twelve years, including special performances in programs hosted by the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Neely also played with such notable musicians as Janis Joplin, Mance Lipscomb and Pete Seeger. In 1974 he released his only album, Blackland Farm Boy. In December 1989 he traveled to Paris, France, with three other Texas musicians to perform for two weeks at the House of World Cultures.
Besides performing onstage, Neely owned restaurants, worked as a hotel chef, and drove a truck for the state of Texas. He married Bobbie Hamilton in 1948. The couple had three daughters, a son, and a stepdaughter. On March 22, 1990, Neely died of leukemia at home. He was buried at Capital Memorial Park. Such artists as Dan Del Santo, Alejandro Escovedo, and Nanci Griffith were influenced by his music. Neely was an inductee into the Austin Music Memorial in 2009.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Robyn Turner, Austin Originals: Chats with Colorful Characters (Amarillo: Paramount, 1982). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.


Often referred to as Austin’s first singer-songwriter, Bill Neely blessed Austin’s club and festival stages between 1949 and his death in 1990, bridging the gap between the origins of American country blues and the modern Texas singer-songwriter tradition.

Born in McKinney, Texas in 1916, William Tom Neely settled in Austin in 1949 after years of “hoboing” the country during the Great Depression and serving in WWII.


Until his death from leukemia in 1990, Neely regularly performed an authentic brand of Texas country and country-blues music in Austin’s clubs and at it’s festivals, setting the stage for a burgeoning scene of notable singer-songwriters to follow.

In his early years in Austin, Neely hooked up with fellow Jimmie Rodgers admirer Kenneth Threadgill, playing often at the informal Wednesday night music sessions that included Janis Joplin and a new generation of musicians at Threadgill’s restaurant on North Lamar between 1962 and 1965. A string band called the Kenneth Threadgill’s Hootenanny Hoots emerged from those Wednesday night sessions that included Neely on lead guitar and vocals. Playing around Austin from the mid-1960s through the early 1970’s, the band performed a variety of traditional country and folk tunes, including a number of blues and Texas-country songs written by Neely.

Neely performed as a solo artist for the last two decades of his life, playing in such colorful Austin clubs as the Alamo Lounge and Spellman’s and on stages from Washington, DC, to Paris, France. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.