Spence, Bill

Bill Spence,
natal chart (Placidus)
natal chart English style (Equal houses)
natal chart with Whole Sign houses

Name	Spence, Bill Gender: M
Birthname	William James Spence
born on	12 August 1940 at 16:06 (= 4:06 PM )
Place	Iowa City, Iowa, 41n40, 91w32
Timezone	CST h6w (is standard time)
Data source	BC/BR in hand Rodden Rating AA Collector: Scholfield
Astrology data	20°00' 20°33 Asc. 28°36'

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Bill Spence (1955)
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Biography

American musician, a hammered dulcimer player from New York, who helped revive the folk instrument in the 1970s. (The hammered dulcimer, also called the hammer dulcimer, is a percussion-string instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board.)

Spence began playing the hammered dulcimer after hearing Howie Mitchell at the 1969 Fox Hollow Festival in Petersburgh, New York. He made his first dulcimer following a plan in Mitchell's book. The only hammered dulcimer recordings available at the time were by Mitchell and another player, Chet Parker on the Folkways label. Spence developed his own style, working out tunes he heard on recordings of other instruments.

In 1970, Spence helped form Fennig's All-Stars, which featured his hammered dulcimer as the lead instrument. The group made its first recording, The Hammered Dulcimer in 1973, using a two-track recorder in Spence's living room. The album was widely distributed (over 60,000 copies have been sold), and became very influential in the early part of the hammered dulcimer revival. One of the cuts from the record (Gaspé Reel and Fiddle Head Reel) was used as the theme for the popular PBS series Crockett's Victory Garden. The album was also designated as a "Recording of Special Merit" by Stereo Review magazine.

The Hammered Dulcimer marked the beginning of Spence's own record label, Front Hall Records. In addition to several further albums by Spence and Fennig's All-Stars, the label released albums by other folk performers, including John McCutcheon, Walt Michael and Company, Louis Killen, and Alistair Anderson. Spence and his wife, Andy, also operated Andy's Front Hall, a mail-order business selling instruments, recordings, instructional materials, and related items. In 2005, the business was scaled down from a full-service operation.

Spence graduated from the University of Iowa in 1962 with a degree in communications. He worked for the Army Security Agency until 1965, and then at the State University of New York at Albany as an audio-visual and computer graphics specialist until retiring in 1998.

Bill Spence lived in Voorheesville, New York. He died on the evening of 7 February 2019 at age 78 in Albany, New York. He was survived by his wife of 57 years, Kay “Andy” Spence, his daughter and her partner, two nieces and a nephew.

Link to Wikipedia biography

Events

• Death, Cause unspecified 7 February 2019 (Age 78)
  chart Placidus Equal_H.

Source Notes

Birth certificate in hand from Sy Scholfield, copy on file.

Categories

• Family : Relationship : Marriage more than 15 Yrs (57 years)

• Family : Parenting : Kids 1-3 (One daughter)

• Vocation : Business : Business owner (Record label)

• Vocation : Entertain/Music : Composer/ Arranger

• Vocation : Entertain/Music : Folk Music

• Vocation : Entertain/Music : Group/ Duo (Fennig's All-Stars)

• Vocation : Entertain/Music : Instrumentalist (Hammered dulcimer)

• Vocation : Entertain/Music : Other Entertain/Music (Producer)