"Bill, you were a truly great musician and a masterful teacher. I remember when you first began giving me guitar lessons at the age of 6. I am forever grateful for the time I spent under your masterful musical direction. No one could ask for a better opportunity to learn than to learn from one of the best in the business. I'm forever grateful to you and my parents for this wonderful gift of music. 19"
In loving memory of
Bill E. Garner
December 31, 1969 - December 31, 1969
Bill Garner was born on the 9th of April, 1937 in Porterville, California. Bill was introduced to music at a very early age. His parents were avid church go?ers and
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.
Tributes
"I have kown Bill for a LONG time. I've loved him as the man he has always been - such a gentle GIANT, and, a huge and talented musician that everyone looked up to, and wish they could emmulate. He will always be MISSED! He has suffered so much lately - but he kept on going. He always said, that if I ever need him even when he was so ill, that he would do the best to help me out with my Band. May God bless and keep him and rest his Soul. And, my deepest condolances to is wife Margaret and all the family Sandy Sanderson Charter member of the Seattle Western Swing Societyand fellow musician."
"All of the members of the Gold Rush Band are grateful we were able to play with Bill Garner, as our lead guitarist. We were not a Western Swing band; but, Bill enjoyed Contemporary and Classic Country music and adapted to the style. He played the local clubs with us and many people who had heard him play with the Johnny Wakely Trio, would come up to him and greet both Bill and Sammie. Bill taught many of this areas musicians to play and jammed with them. We will all miss him. He was an inspiration and a friend. Most of all he was loved... Errice Cunningham/Jack Browder/Butch Gibson/Robert Schaffer/Joy LaJeret/ and Sound Person and Manager Curtis LaJeret"
"Bill and Sammie became friends when we asked Bill to join our band. He became my mentor from that point on. Curt and I would go to his home once a week to study new material and listen to what he recorded in the past. During our time with Bill, he told us many of his past experiences and urged our little band to continue, even when he could no longer continue with us. He was a good and gentle man, as well as, a good friend. He loved music and loved to talk about how it was all put together. He loved his wife Sammie above everything else. He loved the out of doors and would go fishing and shooting clay pigeons, and told us he loved to hunt. Many times he would ask to go with Curt to the clubs, to promote the band. He showed us his garden with pride. Flowers grew everywhere and he often gave us vegetables, fresh from his garden, which he grew and tended with loving hands, in his back yard. We broke bread with Sammie and Bill on several occasions. His passion was cooking. Because his cooking was a delight to him, we could seldom leave, without cake or some treat he had fixed. We will both miss him very much. However, we both know he was deeply spiritual and had a close relationship with his Lord. I know, if I listen closely enough, I can hear him playing and singing in that heavenly home he has gone to. I will hear him on the fresh spring wind; in the lovely roses that sway with the soft summer breezes, in the crisp autumn air when the leaves turn and warm the earth with their light. But most of all, I will hear him on Christmas Eve..."
"My name is Tammy Nelson and I am Johnny Wakely's daughter. I have known Bill a long, long time. The first thing that really stands out in my mind about Bill is how much he loved Sammie. He was so sweet to her, as he was to everyone, but it was so obvious how in love with her he was. Bill was one of the kindest people I have ever known. He always treated me as if I were one of his "own". I'm really going to miss him! It makes me happy to know that he and Johnny are finally back together singing up in heaven. I love you Bill!"
"Dear Garner Family, I want you to know that you are in my thoughts and prayers during this sorrowful time. When I think of Bill, I think of all the times we Jerry and I went to dance at Bud's in Edgewood. How sweet the music was, those are the times and memories that will last forever. May God be with all and keep you in his loving care. As Ever Lois Varner"
"Dearest Sammi, I am so deeply sorry for your loss. You were a wonderful wife ad his best friend. Hoot and I loved him so much. Remember when we came up so I could interview Bill? Afterwards, the two of them went into Bill's music room and we never saw them for quite a while. Bill was a wonderful musician. I have his tape still. Most of all he was a wonderful man, and a good friend to so many. He was also a perfect gentleman. I,as well as many others will miss him always. I like to think that he and Hoot and so many that we have lost are playing somewhere together in the best Swing/Country band there ever was. My love to you always, Coral"