Bill
Hinkley 1942-2010
Memorial – celebration for
bill –
At the
Brief memorial service to be led by
Rev. Bill Teska
Musicians (and instruments) will be
coming
Everybody welcome!
References.
The Star Tribune and St.
Paul Pioneer Press have run nice articles on Bill – see below. In addition, check out the following
Picture and article by
Garrison Keillor:
http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/special/bill-hinkley/
Bio
on Folk Artists
http://mnfolkarts.org/bill_judy/bill_judy.html
Blog
with Photo
http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2010/05/bill_hinkley_19.php
http://www.publicradio.org/columns/prairiehome/off-the-air/2010/05/bill-hinkley-1942---2010.shtml
Obituary:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/startribune/obituary.aspx?n=william-bradbury-hinkley&pid=143222994
Search
the Internet for Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson – there are more blogs and articles in smaller newspapers.
OBITUARY.
William Bradbury Hinkley
Hinkley, William Bradbury Age 67, of
RIP Bill. Boat for sale.
Published in the Star Tribune and
ARTICLES.
Star Tribune
A farewell to Bill Hinkley
Provided by "A Prairie Home Companion"
Judy Larson, Bill Hinkley, Garrison Keillor, Bob Douglas and Rudy
Darling in
He was a hero, mentor and friend to hundreds of
By PAUL METSA, Special to the Star Tribune Last
update:
I am not sure they make men like Bill
Hinkley anymore.
The patriarch and godfather of
Minneapolis' West Bank music scene, Hinkley was a master musician, an Air Force
veteran who spoke five languages (including Greek and Mandarin Chinese), a self-taught
multi-instrumentalist, a human jukebox of thousands of songs, storyteller,
teacher, sit- down comedian, devoted lover-then- husband of Judy Larson for
five decades, historian, hero, mentor
and friend to hundreds of musicians and
thousands of fans.
He was both Will Rogers with a
mandolin and a philosopher king who held sway in saloons, concert halls, radio
shows, campfires, kitchen tables, festivals and benefits -- the kind of American who defines this
country, and one I was honored to call my friend.
Hinkley, who died Tuesday at age 67,
had been fighting a blood disorder for the past
couple of years that sapped his strength but never his love for music or
his God-given calling to entertain and enlighten with his encyclopedic knowledge of music -- in
all styles, from every country and in
all time signatures.
As a performer he swung and improvised with an
abandon that reminded one of Joe Venuti, Django Reinhardt or the Mississippi Sheiks.
He could quote anyone from Shakespeare to Dick Tracy. He had a sense of humor that
recalled, at turns, the likes of Mark
Twain, H.L Mencken or Lord Buckley. And
believe me, you have not lived until you've heard Bill
Hinkley and Judy Larson sing "Amazing Grace" to the melody of the
"Gilligan's
A Twin Cities musician friend
referred to Hinkley as "our Socrates." Witnessing the dozens of friends who made the pilgrimage
to Hinkley's hospice at the
As we assembled there in the community room on May
20, right before dinner, the wheelchairs
of disabled vets rolled in. You could sense a
solidarity with one of their own -- brothers in arms, enjoying the fruits and
flowering of their service and sacrifice via Brother Bill.
I recently learned that Hinkley
attended the same
Hinkley's greatest
lessons to me were
distilled in two simple concepts: "End every story with a smile or a laugh," and
"the best music is played without
pretension."
While Hinkley and Larson never got
rich playing folk music -- he was never in the music business, but rather was
in the business of making music, a servant to the song -- all of us got richer listening to
them play.
Paul Metsa
is a
Star
Tribune –
The man whom Garrison Keillor called the “Buddha of the
By JON BREAM, Star
Tribune Last update:
The way Garrison Keillor introduced them -- "BillHinkleyandJudyLarson"
-- they were inseparable:
It's now just Judy Larson. Hinkley died Tuesday of a blood disorder in a
hospice at the
In his final days, a who's who of
"We had quite a circus there," Larson said. "Music was woven into him. We tied a mandolin around his
neck and he'd try to play. He'd join in
to sing even though he hadn't talked all day. Music revived him."
When
"We were all pretty aware of the severity of the situation," Metsa recalled. "Bill came rolling in singing 'Heartbreak
Hotel,' lightening the load for all of
us. At one point he
stood up, cane in one hand, and his other
hand holding mine strongly. He closed his eyes and sang 'Abide With Me.' Dakota
Dave Hull was playing guitar, with Bill
shouting out some of the trickier chords
as they went along. He then gave a two-minute dissertation
on the two guys that wrote the song,
with a note about the monosyllabic
second verse. A teacher 'til the end."
Hinkley, who taught himself how to play mandolin, fiddle, guitar and banjo,
taught for decades at the West Bank
School of Music in
"He inspired, encouraged and facilitated the whole contest -- he was its guiding
force," said Nate Dungan, who books entertainment at the fair. "And he won the Gamblers Competition
every year, where you draw a 
song title out of a hat and have to
play it. There's only one person I could
say who knew
more about American popular song than
Bill, and that was Tiny Tim."
Born in
Hinkley and Larson were the first musical guests ever on "A Prairie Home
Companion." "Bill, without an instrument in
his hands, could
be gruff and jumpy and growl at you,"
Keillor said Tuesday.
"Bill, playing his mandolin or fiddle or guitar, was
always in g ood humor and sometimes even blissful. He was self-taught,
stubborn, very generous -- especially to
students. He lived in music, put it in his coffee, spread it on his
toast. He and Judy
were the Buddha and Juddha of the
In addition to his wife, Hinkley is survived by his daughter and granddaughter in
Star
Tribune –
Mpls. music master Bill Hinkley dies
Bill Hinkley on the porch of the West Bank School of Music, 1989
Star Tribune photo by Joey McLeister
Bill
Hinkley, folk-music master, West Bank guru and “A Prairie Home Companion”
mainstay, died Tuesday at the VA hospital in Minneapolis. He was 67.
As Garrison
Keillor would introduce them, it was BillHinkleyandJudyLarson – so inseparable
that Keillor spoke of them as if they were one. They were regulars on Prairie
Home’s early years. And Hinkley, a singer/mandolinist/fiddler/guitarist/banjo
player and longtime teacher at the West Bank School of Music, made music
up until his last days. There was a gathering of friends and fellow musicians
playing at Hinkley’s hospice on Friday.
Minneapolis
singer/songwriter Paul Metsa recalls a moment with Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson
from nine days ago:
“There
were five or six of us waiting for him to come back from his room. We were all
pretty aware of the severity of the situation. Bill came rolling into the room
singing ‘Heartbreak Hotel,’ lightening the load for all of us. At one point he
stood up, cane in one hand, and his other hand holding mine strongly. He closed
his eyes and sang ‘Abide with Me,’ an old hymn from 1850 or so. Dakota Dave
Hull was playing guitar, with Bill shouting out some of the trickier chords as
they went along. He then gave a 2-minute dissertation on the two guys that
wrote the song, with a note about the monosyllabic second verse. A teacher ‘til
the end.”
Hinkley
was suffering from a blood disorder that caused his bone marrow to manufacture
an overabundance of red blood cells.
Folk musician and
former 'Prairie Home' cast member Bill Hinkley dies at 67
Pioneer Press - Updated:
Twin
Cities folk icon
Bill Hinkley died Tuesday at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. He was 67.
An original member of the
"A Prairie Home Companion" performing cast, Hinkley taught hundreds
of local students guitar, fiddle, mandolin and banjo.
He was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in 1999. Hinkley and his
wife and musical partner, Judy Larson, earned a lifetime achievement award from
the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Association.
In a statement on his
website, Garrison Keillor remembered Hinkley as someone who "chose to live
his life on his own terms, off the clock and outside the grid. He had little
interest in the music business as such, marketing, networking and so forth. He
enjoyed playing the radio show, I think, but he would just as soon sit around
in his back yard for six hours with friends and play their way through a river
of tunes, one after another."
Hinkley was suffering from a
blood disorder and spent his final days in hospice. A Facebook
tribute page, "Friends of Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson," was flooded
Tuesday afternoon with memories and anecdotes from friends and family. Funeral
arrangements are pending.
— Ross Raihala
PHOTOS.
From
the Star Tribune
From
Blogs/CityPages:
http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2010/05/bill_hinkley_19.php
Scanned
images from the St. Paul Pioneer Press
