Bill Hinds : The Bio
Born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1957, Bill Hinds was immersed in music from the beginning. “My mother was a classical organist and great music was a constant in our house. Bach, Strauss, Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck, Rodgers & Hammerstein, The Beatles…I learned very early that melody is everything.” Like so many others from his generation, playing the guitar became a foregone conclusion after witnessing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. At 15, he began gigging around a local music scene that included The Commodores, Tommy Shaw, Beth Nielson-Chapman, Allen Hinds, and a score of equally gifted, if less well known, singers, players, and songwriters. “It was a great time and place to learn the craft; Montgomery was crawling with talent, work was abundant, and in the Seventies, with artists like Steely Dan and Yes selling lots of records, it was okay - even profitable – to play adventurous music.”
In 1976, Bill made the trip to Muscle Shoals, Alabama with Montgomery's fabled band Harmony to do some recording, which led to a series of callbacks for demo work and record dates. “At the time, everybody was taking their cues from the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan and making slick, L.A.-type records. I think I was getting work because I sounded more ‘west coast’ than a lot of Alabama and Nashville guys in those days.” He continued touring clubs and playing around Montgomery while making the commute to the Shoals for session work.
After a two-year break from the music biz for personal reasons, Bill moved to Muscle Shoals in 1986 and never looked back. His credits include albums by Wayne Newton, Roy Orbison, Johnny Taylor, Mac McAnally, Sawyer Brown, Denise LaSalle, Shenandoah, Dobie Gray, The Forester Sisters, and Huey Lewis & The News. After playing on the Foresters’ Talkin’ ‘Bout Men and I’ve Got A Date albums, he began touring the world with them and eventually relocated to the mountains of north Georgia.
Sometime around the turn of the century, Bill decided to try his hand at website construction and hosting. This led to the creation of a small, one-man labor of love called Lookout Web Services. LWS has a very small client roster which allows for a personal touch in website creation and hosting.
Meanwhile, Bill met singer/songwriter Paul Thorn while living in Muscle Shoals and was Paul’s mainstay guitarist for 30 years, playing acoustic, electric, and slide guitars on twelve albums & two DVDs, toured with one of the best rock and roll bands on the road, and appeared on TV shows Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Paul Thorn records consistently charted Top 10 on Americana radio and made year end best-of lists, and the live shows were always sold out rave-ups. Bill still oversees Paul's web presence and strategy, and he rejoined his former bandmates to help record Paul's 2025 release, Life Is Just A Vapor. Click here for more Paul Thorn.
Bill Hinds has returned to his hometown of Montgomery, Alabama where, as a partner in Bama Sound Media, he creates, produces, and records music, audiobooks, and other media content.