Briefly known as William Jefferson Clinton for a time during his adolescence, the jazz musician Bill Blythe announced today his retirement from touring for health reasons. After an early life of poverty in Arkansas, Blythe would become one of the most respected jazz musicians of his era, winning respect and admiration for his work as a session musician and band leader. Originally associated with the jazz scene of Detroit in the 1960s, Blythe would later become a leading pioneer of acid jazz, and as bandleader of the jazz-punk collective Miser, a leading influence on the development of the underground rock of the 1980s. A confrontational and divisive figure, Blythe has also become famous for his Marxist politics, criticisms of the music industry and innovative production work, and as a figure who is loathed and loved in equal measure his announcement today of his retirement from music is likely to be greeted with both relief and sadness.
Born in 1946, his father William Blythe Sr. was a travelling salesman who died in a traffic accident a few months before his birth. His mother, made ends meet as a nurse eventually marrying local car salesman Roger Clinton in 1950. Clinton, an alcoholic and gambler, would prove to be a domineering force in Bill’s adolescence, and his refusal to adopt his stepfather’s surname legally (though he used it informally) would prove to be one of the many tensions that would arise between the two. His stepfather’s violence towards his mother, as well as Bill and his younger half-brother Roger, ensured that fights were a regular occurrence in the Clinton household.
Blythe has often said in interviews that his childhood experiences with his stepfather were what spurred him to take up music, and at the age of sixteen he won the first chair in the saxophone section of the Arkansas state band, and it was here that the dream of a career in music took off, later writing in his autobiography
Seven Birds to the Wind that while he thought about being a doctor “I loved music man. I was never gonna be on Coltrane or Getz’s level, but I could play. I could play my way out of that house, out of that school and out of that state.” After graduating from school aged eighteen he left home to move to Detroit, where he found work initially as a housepainter, before meeting bassist Ron Carter who would introduce him to the Miles Davis Quintet.
While Blythe would never play with the band his talents were noted by Grant Green who recruited him to his band, where he played for several years as a sideman. Grant’s problems with heroin addiction would see Blythe quit in 1966 and he moved initially to Chicago, where he played with veterans of the Chicago Dixieland style Art Hodes and Jimmy McPartland. It would be here that he would first meet Getz, and while the two men would never play together the meeting would inspire Blythe to try his hand at making his own music. Moving to Canada in late 1967, in order to avoid the draft, he played with Lenny Breau. It would be in Europe however that his music career would come into its own.
Bill Blythe circa 1970
Blythe, tired of what he perceived as conservatism on the part of jazz audiences in North America moved to London in early 1968. Initially a member of the jazz-rock band Colosseum, he would leave that group in 1970 and formed his band The Blythe Quintet. Inspired by the jazz fusion of
Bitches Brew the group would release several acid jazz albums during the 1970s and toured extensively across Europe, where they also performed as the opener for Weather Report. The quintet would break up in 1975, as Blythe suffering from alcoholism and depression returned to the States following a failed suicide attempt. After two years living in Los Angeles, he formed Miser as a jazz-rock group, who would increasingly adapt punk and heavier rock influences into their sound. Often noted for their chaotic live shows and left wing politics, they came to be regarded as one of the forerunners of jazz-punk and no-wave, and became an influential act within the underground music scene of Los Angeles and the West Coast with bands such as Flipper, Black Flag and the D.C. based group Nation of Ulysses all naming them as an influence.
After the acrimonious breakup of Miser in 1985, and feeling burned out by the music industry, Blythe would retire to Oregon, establishing a base for himself in Portland. Bored with punk, and finding the mainstream soft jazz of acts such as Kenny G repulsive, he would turn increasingly to experimenting with electronica and ambient music, and in 1987 he would release several EPs of techno under the name WJB, before eventually returning to his first love jazz. Deciding to play as a session musician rather than form a new group, he would become involved in production work in the early 90s and worked with a diverse group of artists extending from hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest to heavy metal band Tool.
While these new collaborations would bring him to the attention of a new generation of musicians, Blythe’s long struggles with alcoholism would take their toll, and he announced his temporary retirement from music in 1997, checking into a clinic in Colorado to help aid his return to sobriety. In 1999 he would return to the public eye, having recovered from his long years of alcohol abuse, and following several weeks of talks announced that the original line-up of Miser would reunite for a national tour in the new millennium, which would see the band play the Warped tour, where they were poorly received. Following this they would release an album entitled
Brown in Cleveland in honour of an incident where they pelted with mud by the irate crowd during a set in Ohio.
Despite calls for the band to continue touring, Blythe called it quits in late 2002, citing exhaustion. Following this he eventually returned to production work, having built a recording studio in Minneapolis. After working with several up and coming artists, he announced this week that he was retiring from music, after more than forty years in the business. Blythe has yet to announce what his next project will be, but many are not ruling out a return to the music industry in the not too distant future.