Bill Staines is a songwriter and folk singer from New England. In the early 1960s, he started his professional career in the Cambridge, Massachusetts area. Staines began nationwide touring a few years later. In 1975, he won the National Yodeling Championship at the Kerrville Folk Festival. He performs about 200 times a year and has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage, and The Good Evening Show.

Notable Bill Staines songs include "Sweet Wyoming Home," "The Roseville Fair," "A Place in the Choir," and "Child of Mine."

His songs have been recorded by other artists including, Peter, Paul, & Mary, Makem and Clancy, Nanci Griffith, Mason Williams, The Highwaymen, Glen Yarborough, Jerry Jeff Walker, Grandpa Jones, and Priscilla Herdman. Staines has recorded twenty-two of his own albums, fifteen of which are still in print as of 2005. Additionally, his songs have been published in four songbooks, If I Were A Word, Then I'd Be A Song, River, Music To Me, The Songs of Bill Staines, and All God's Critters Got A Place In The Choir.

In 2004, his memoir, The Tour: A Life Between the Lines, was published.

External links

• The Bill Staines Web Site