It is a sad day for the Progressive Rock music world. My good friend Bill Gillham has passed away last Easter Sunday! I knew Bill had been fighting Leukemia since March of this year. He had told me he was getting stronger aside from the chemo treatment. He had never mentioned that he had been fighting this for well over a year. So, it was quite a shock to me to hear that news. I had known Bill since about 1979. We had met working for Farmers New World Life Insurance. Bill and I experimented with music in the 1980s and 90s. He was quite the talented musician. During those early years Bill released many independent music albums. In 1991 we went into Trax Studios in Seattle and worked on an album entitled Songs from a Distant Season. It was really our first collaboration attempt at an album. Bill would later in 2008 head the progressive rock group Cirrus Bay. I worked with him on a few of the tracks on their first album entitled The Slipping of a Day. Cirrus Bay would go on to record a number of albums...the last one being 2019's The Art of Vanishing. Cirrus Bay and Bill received some great independent reviews from around the world about their music. Bill's inspiration came from bands like Genesis, Renaissance, King Crimson, and many other prog rock groups. It is a loss for me as he was a true friend who was always kind and never had a bad word to say about anyone. He loved the Autumn season and the possibility of a big snowstorm. We often talked about new music from around the progressive world as well as his own new creations. I had gone to a few concerts with Bill....from Tears for Fears in 1996 (at the Showbox) to a couple of Steve Hackett concerts at the (2014 and 2019) Moore. The photo below is from the last time we got together. It was in October of 2019 that we went to Steve Hackett. Before the show we went to an Indian/Tibetan restaurant which Bill absolutely loved. I will miss our friendship, conversations and his wit. His passing is a big loss to the music world. RIP Bill............your music will continue to live on!
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