Bonnie Prince Billy

William Oldham, also known as Bonnie Prince Billy, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, December 24, 1970. He rose to fame thank to the peculiar manner of playing punk rock and straightforwardness of his lyrics. Late in the eighties and in the early nineties, William worked as an actor having many appearances in variegated TV shows. His most prominent work of that time was the part in the 1991 film Thousand Pieces of Gold. Oldham launched his music career in 1992; and before the public knew about him as Bonnie Prince Billy, the artist had tried a number of monikers and played with a number of bands. However, the style has always been the same. The young musician went into punk rock as the most appropriate way to express his own ideas. The liberty of his views and the audaciousness of his texts made him the favorite of a wide audience.

Oldham-musician started with the project Palace Brothers to produce his debut album, There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You. After that, the musician renamed his project to Palace Music and recorded two more efforts, Viva Last Blues (1995), and Arise Therefore (1996). In 1997, Oldham finally released Joya under his real name. However, it was not long before he again searched for a pseudonym and picked up Bonnie Prince Billy. Named anew, he issued in 1998 a poorly promoted album that was called Black Dissimulation; but the subsequent attempt of his, I See a Darkness, released in a year, was quite an achievement. Since then, Oldham has always been performing and recording under the name by which he became known to big masses. Yet his music and lyrics never changed significantly. It was a rather simple rock with primitive structures combined with stories from the dark side of our life. As strange as it was, this simplicity attracted wide public to the art of the singer. In 2004, Bonnie Prince Billy surprised his supporters with a notable CD, called Bonnie "Prince" Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music. With the help of Nashville-based session musicians, he re-recorded some of his old songs to grant them an unexpectedly clean and polished sounding.

After finishing this experiment, Oldham reunited with guitarist Matt Sweeny who played banjo for some of the tracks from Oldham’s 2001 album Ease Down the Road. The outcome of their resumed cooperation appeared a very powerful and colorful long player under the title Superwolf, available since January 2005. The acute melodies and profound texts of this emotional work captivated both listeners and critics. All of them unanimously proclaimed it one of the strongest releases in the first half of the year. Inspired by this accomplishment, Sweeny and Oldham backed this CD with the single I Gave You, featuring two non-album compositions. This was followed by a prolonged sequence of live performances which pushed the talented duet to recruit the whole set of musicians. In September 2006, Oldham extended his solo collection with a fresh studio work called with The Letting Go, and soon released an EP with covers of other celebrities’ songs, Ask Forgiveness (2007). 2008 was a very productive year in the career of Bonnie Prince Billy. In winter, he hit the stores with the live record Wilding in the West, made exclusively for Austria. In spring, he issued another studio long player under the title Lie Down in the Light, one of the most proficient works in his entire discography. Late in 2008, Oldham offered to his fans one more live album, Is it the Sea? As soon as in the first half of 2009, Bonnie Prince Billy surfaced with the subsequent effort, Beware. The same year the musician released the record Funtown Comedown (2009) and a year later he pleased his listeners by the new album titled The Wonder Show Of The World (2010), which was created in the singer’s signature style. There is no doubt that traditionally strong long play will be enjoyed by Oldham’s old fans and by those who are just going to get acquainted with his creativity.