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Bill Fay

A London singer-songwriter and pianist whose two Deram albums of 1970 and 1971 were deleted, who kept writing for four decades, and who returned in 2012 with Life Is People.

Origin
London, England
Years active
1967-2025
Genres
folk rock
Labels
Deram, Wooden Hill, Durtro Jnana, Coptic Cat, Dead Oceans
Also known as
William Fay

Deram and the deleted years

William Fay was born on September 9, 1943 in north London. He studied electronics at college in Wales, where he began writing songs on piano and harmonium. His first single, "Some Good Advice" with "Screams in the Ears", came out on Deram in 1967. The album Bill Fay followed in 1970, produced by Peter Eden, with all the songs by Fay and a cover photograph of him standing in a lake in Hyde Park. In February 1971 came Time of the Last Persecution, produced by Fay and the guitarist Ray Russell, inspired by the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation and recorded in October 1970 in a single day, according to a Record Collector listing. Sales were poor, Decca reportedly did not promote it, and Fay was dropped and both records deleted.

He took odd and janitorial jobs while still writing songs. Recordings made between 1978 and 1981 stayed unreleased until 2005. Both albums were reissued in 1998, and Fay said in 2012 that he had come to terms with being deleted, but had always kept writing songs anyway. The collection From the Bottom of an Old Grandfather Clock (Wooden Hill, 2004) gathered 25 demos and outtakes recorded between 1966 and 1970.

The return

Tomorrow, Tomorrow & Tomorrow (2005, Durtro Jnana) was credited to the Bill Fay Group, and Still Some Light followed on Coptic Cat in 2010. In 2007 Fay joined Wilco onstage at Shepherd's Bush Empire to sing "Be Not So Fearful", and again at Union Chapel in 2010; Jeff Tweedy and Nick Cave were among his champions. Life Is People, released on Dead Oceans on August 21, 2012, was his first new studio album in more than forty years. It was produced by Joshua Henry and recorded over ten days at Snap Studios in north London, with Guy Massey engineering and mixing, Ray Russell and the drummer Alan Rushton again on the record, and Tweedy singing on "This World". Metacritic scored it 86 out of 100, and AllMusic's Thom Jurek called it a great work of art. Its proceeds went to Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Who Is the Sender? followed in April 2015 and Countless Branches on January 17, 2020, with a New York Times feature in January 2020. Bill Fay died on February 22, 2025 in London, aged 81. Other musicians have covered his songs: Okkervil River "Plan D" in 2011, The War on Drugs "I Hear You Calling" in 2014, Marc Almond "Cosmic Boxer" in 2008, and Stephen Malkmus "We Have Laid Here" in San Francisco in February 2009.

Records

Songs

Wilco

Where to go next

Reference

Writing and criticism

Labels

Sources

  1. Bill Fay, Wikipedia
  2. Life Is People, Wikipedia
  3. Time of the Last Persecution, Wikipedia
  4. Bill Fay: Time of the Last Persecution, Record Collector
  5. Bill Fay, Dead Oceans