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Bill Staines
Biography
The American landscape has been a major theme for New Hampshire-based singer-songwriter Bill Staines. His songs have captured the beauty of rivers, mountains and the open space of the American west. Staines' ability to write songs that seem like traditional folksongs has made him a favorite source of new material. His original tunes, including "The Roseville Fair," "River," "Wild, Wild Heart," "Yellowstone Winds" and "A Place in the Choir (All God's Critters)," have been covered by such artists as Nanci Griffith, Jerry Jeff Walker, Grandpa Jones, Fairport Convention, Priscilla Herdman, Gordon Bok and Mason Williams.

Although his country-folk tunes reflect on the personalities, lifestyle and environment of such places as Wyoming, Colorado and Alaska, Staines hails from Lexington, Massachusetts, a small city northwest of Boston. As a youngster, Staines was heavily inspired by the folk scene in Boston and Cambridge in the early '60s. Together with a junior high school friend, Dick Curtis, and his younger brother, John, who later played with The Pousette-Dart Band, Staines formed a folk band, The Green Mountain Boys. Although the Curtis brothers preferred old timey string music and bluegrass, Staines remained tied to romantic folk ballads.
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