We lost a kind man who was a dedicated educator and fun musician when Bill Knittle left us April 3. I have memories of Bill that go back many years. That’s when we lived in Worthington, where Friday night meant dancing at Liston’s. The Bum Steers, Bill’s first band, was among those that played there.
Actually, Bill and I worked together at the Daily Hampshire Gazette a long time ago. I was on the editorial side and he was in the ad department. Eventually, Bill left the news business, got his master’s and taught in elementary schools. Almost a year ago, he retired as principal of Rowe Elementary School.
The last time I saw Bill perform was with his third band, Wild Bill and Big Trouble, when it played at my son Zack’s Floodwater Brewing on Feb. 18. Bill was in great form as the band’s lead singer dressed in full Western attire like in the photo above that was published with his obit.
Back to the Bum Steers … my then agent wanted me to write a tell-all book about the hilltowns. So, I interviewed Bum Steer Bill for one chapter about Liston’s when it was owned by Steve and Diane Magargal. The book didn’t materialize. My agent wanted the dirt I wasn’t willing to share about the people I knew. Hey, I still had to live there. But here is some of what I wrote after meeting with Bill.
It’s another Friday night at Liston’s and the Bum Steers are into that likable playlist that gets people off their seats and dancing. Bum Steer Bill, wearing a red Western shirt and silver studs in his ears, says the band loves Johnny Cash, and their audiences do, too. The Bum Steers play five of his songs tonight. They also play a Willie Nelson, more of the Stones and something by Hank Williams. A Warren Zevon clears the dancers, but he’s a band favorite. It rebounds with another golden Western, and the floor refills.
The Bum Steers may not be the best band that plays at Liston’s, but the musicians are big crowd-pleasers. Bill says, “We’re not good enough musicians to win them over that way. We just make friends. We play music people like.”
The band debuted when the core four, who grew up together, did an eight-number set as the warm-up act for their 40th birthday party at a Legion hall years ago. Eight months later, they had their first gig playing for the door at a bar in the Berkshires. Then the Bum Steers started making music twice a month at bars and clubs all over Western Massachusetts.
Bill says if he ran a bar, it’d be like Liston’s. People pay attention, and if fifty people are in the place, forty will dance. He remembers the time a couple of women danced on the bar top. “It makes you feel a little like a rock star.”
Years ago, the Bum Steers recorded a CD, The Bum Steers Live at Liston’s. The cover has a photo one of the bar’s super-regulars, a logger whose father was once mayor of a very large city as he clutches a longneck and raises a hand in a how-do-you-do barroom salute.
The album, which unfortunately I no longer have, is sort of a best-hits list for the band, including a couple of originals. The tune, Thousand Dollar Car, is one of the Bum Steers’ best slow numbers. The chorus goes like this: “Oh, why did I go and buy a thousand dollar car?” Really.
Hank and I weren’t there for the recording, but later we bought the CD, autographed by the band, for five bucks. Bum Steers Bill signed his: “Glad you keep comin’ out.”
We’re gonna miss you Bill.