Bill Simms Jr.
Bill Sims Jr.
Bill Sims Jr., is an American blues musician. Born into and raised by a sharecropping family in rural Georgia, he grew up in Marion, Ohio, and began playing piano at the age of four. At age 14, he turned professional and joined the rhythm and blues band the 'Jacksonian Blues', which he left to attend Ohio State University.
In 1971, Sims joined another rhythm and blues group, the doo-wop-influenced 'Four Mints'. He left the band in 1976 to form 'The Lamorians', an avant-garde jazz band influenced by traditional African drumming. In 1988, he returned to the blues, founding Bill Sims and the Cold Blooded Blues Band. He released his debut album, "Blues Before Sunrise", in 1992, and 1999, PBS did a 10-hour documentary on Sims and his interracial family (with Sims's partner Karen Wilson), an American Love Story. Sims released another album to coincide with this broadcast.
A Warner Bros. recording artist, Mr. Sims is also an accomplished musical director and has lent his talents to many theater and film productions, in New York as well as throughout the United States. His film credits include "Lackawanna Blues", "Miss Ruby's House", "American Gangster", and the recent "Cadillac Records. Mr Sims currently lives in New York City where he has mentored a new generation of New York-based blues and roots musicians.
(Bill Sims Jr. at 19th annual Poconos Blues Fest 2010)