:Vocalo.org

About BILL SAMSEL Bill Samsel is a talented artist. He is a vocalist, songwriter, recording artist and a published author. He has traveled the country and has performed and been interviewed on radio and television shows. "My influences range wide.” He says. “From Elvis, Holly, Jerry Lee, Sam Cooke, to the Beatles, Traffic, the brothers Gibb, to Donovan, Cat Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot. Then there’s Morrison, Jagger and Bowie and then Cash, Yoakam and Willie and then Bob Marley, the Itals and Gregory Isaacs to B. B. King, John Lee Hooker . . . If I think about it, I could go on and on.” “I’ve been writing and recording music all my life. Back in high school days, people would come over to my house with guitars, amps and drums and whatever and we’d get high and creative and we’d record tunes on a reel to reel that we called the “mystery box” because we could get some really cool sounds out of that thing.” I’ve written songs that could be classified as Blues, Rock, Pop, Reggae, Jazz, Folk, Country, etc. I love all kinds of different music. I even listen to Beethoven, Ravi Shankar and R. Carlos Nakai.” Over the years I went from mimicking other artists, other vocalists...that’s what a lot of singers do...they mimic other artists...I went from that, to experimenting with my vocals, and it took me a long time but I eventually found my own voice, my own unique sound, so that I don’t sound like anyone else. Elvis had his own sound. The same with Donovan and Yoakam and Winwood. You can’t mistake them when you hear them. Sam Cooke had his own sound and nobody else sounded like him. When you hear Sam Cooke...you know right off that it’s Sam Cooke! That’s what a real vocalist has to do." "Another thing that makes an artist an artist is the ability to write songs that are potential HITS. Not just one or two but many. I’ve always felt that the greatest hit songs were simple and short, three or four minutes in length, something simple and short and "catchy". The "hook" is extremely important. It’s the hook that catches in people’s minds so that they go about their business whistling or humming the tune. It sticks in their mind. That’s the whole point of it. That’s what makes it a hit. I’ve written a few hundred tunes in my time with these thoughts in mind. This is how I’ve always done it and will continue to do so."