Bill Elliott (musician)

Bill Elliott (born William F. Elliott, October 2, 1951) is a keyboardist, songwriter, composer, and Tony Award winning Broadway ochestrator.

Early life

In 1969, Elliott graduated from Wayland High School in Connecticut, about 20 miles west of Boston. He played clarinet in his school band and wrote his first orchestrations for the the band to play at halftime for their football games. He did not attend college and stated, "I just wanted to be a musician". He began playing keyboards and played in local bands. He had some early success in a country-rock band called The Rowan Brothers, who eventually opened for The Grateful Dead. Elliiott performed on their 1962 album "The Rowan Brothers" which featured Jerry Garcia as guest artist and also steel guitar vurtuoso Buddy Emmons.

He progressed to performing for major acts, such as Livingston Taylor, Johnathan Taylor, and Tom Rush in the mid 1970s. He moved to Los Angeles and became a member of Bonnie Raitt's band. He became a studio musician then started his own band, "The Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra". He said, "I learned arranging on the fly, just trying it out."

Broadway

Elliott along with two other collaborators, won a Tony Award got his orchestration of the Broadway musical, An American in Paris. When Elliott came onto the project, the production had already been performed in Paris for four months. They wanted someone to come into the project who could change the music for its Broadway debut, so they hired Elliott. He said, "I felt like I was hire to put the 'American' in An American in Paris." In this process, the show is fine-tuned based on what the director feel the audience responds to; for example a change in a dance routine requires that the music for that dance be re-written.