Imagine living in a iron mining town where seven out of ten adults was foreign born, a place where a person could live their entire life without speaking English.
Bill’s original songs tell the story of life in the mining towns like Negaunee and Ishpeming. The favorite winter sport was ski jumping, Saturday night was a time to join friends in a sauna and pasties were the food of choice for iron miners.
The original songs Bill has written tell the story of a unique culture that flourished due to its isolation.
The Flying Bietila’s is about six ski jumping brothers from Ishpeming, Born to be Miner tells the story a Finnish youth who lived in a company house in Negaunee. E.C. Roberts is a traditional song about an iron ore schooner that came to Escanaba to pick up ore shipments. Wizard Oil looks at a traveling medicine show that visited many U.P. towns a hundred years ago. Ann Street is a humorous look at growing up in a mining town during The Great Depression. Thimbleberry Jam is about two brothers bringing berries to their grandmother on the train to the mining town of Republic.
