Bringing Rock'n Soul back to the dance floors, Meet Billy Buchanan

Music has always been a huge part of Billy Buchanan’s life. Influenced at a young age by a broad range of music, he has found his inspiration in the 50’s and 60’s legends, and his Rock ‘n Soul sound is filling up the dance floors all over northeast Florida.

When did you know you were interested in music?

As early as I can remember, as a kid at six or seven years old, my friends would be outside playing kickball and I'd be the one inside listening to my dad's records. Music drew me in early on in life. I have musicians throughout my family, my mom is a piano player, my grandfather and his brother were a guitar players. As a matter of fact, my granddad's little brother played guitar for Sam Cooke and a bunch of cats like that, so it was always around me. I never wanted to do anything else, music was it!

Did you start playing an instrument at a young age?

Yes, I started singing as early as I could sing in school. I was a choir kid and did anything with performing musically. I started playing guitar when I was eleven or twelve years old and I remember seeing Prince in the “Little Red Corvette” video and knew that’s what I wanted to do.

Did you pick up the guitar easily?

I did and I remember my first teacher, Chip, he had me playing songs like “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and I wanted to play what I was hearing on the radio. I did that for a bit but then went to my uncle (he’s my mom’s little brother and is about six or seven years older than me), and asked him who can teach me how to play like Prince or Earth Wind and Fire and he hooked me up with his friend Glen, who lived around the corner. Glen taught me how to play Purple Rain and it was the hardest thing I’d ever learned in my life. I wasn’t able to hear the chords change and Glen told me to just keep listening and it’ll hit me and he was right because one day it did. I still play Purple Rain as the last song of almost all of my shows. I’ve played it a thousand times and the other night while playing it, I closed my eyes and remembered the first time ever seeing the movie in the theater and hearing that song for the first time. It was the most rocking song I had ever heard in my life at that point. All these years later, I’m still playing that song and still loving it.

What kind of music did you grow up to?

My dad is not a musician, but he was a huge music fan and had a large album collection. Artists like; Janice Joplin, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Hendrix, Crosby, Stills and Nash…I listened to all of it, and have been influenced by all of it. Throughout my career, it has been a blessing and a curse. Here’s what I mean. When I was signed to a label, I would come out with rock songs, R&B songs, country-sounding songs, etc. and they just didn’t know what to do with me. So it’s been kind of hard in that perspective. I think over the last five or six years I've got it figured out and definitely stay in my wheelhouse now.

What musicians inspired you?

I always tell people if I was stuck on an island with one album, it would be Stevie Wonder “Songs in Key of Life”. That album does everything and goes everywhere. Like I said earlier, I’m also a huge Prince fan. But I just love songwriters. Artists like Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Carole King and of course the Motown and Stax writers.

What inspired you to focus mainly on the 50s and 60s genre?

I knew that I couldn’t be all things to all people and had to make a decision. I’ll never forget this, I was playing one of the venues in town and a lady came up to me during one of my breaks and told me she loved to hear me sing. She said that I did artists like Keith Urban or John Legend just fine but she loved it most when I sang the soul stuff. Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, etc…that’s when she “believed it”. That really hit me because that is the type of music that really inspired me when I was growing up; Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations…those are the artists I always loved listening to. After that, I told my manager at the time that I was only going to focus on 50s and 60s artists and my original stuff and she thought I was out of my mind. I knew there was an audience for it and I had a feeling that it was just going to work for me. I thought about the dance community and what they love to listen to and I knew nobody else was doing this my age, so I stuck to my guns and it was the best decision ever.

When you left Ohio you moved to Atlanta, tell me about that experience?

I had a great music teacher in High School, Dr. Wallace, and he helped me get a voice scholarship at Cleveland State and I went there. The first semester I was doing more classical studies and I just hated it. I was eighteen years old and wanted to get out and live my life. Ha, I wanted to start a band and be famous and all that stuff. I ended up quitting and was working in a gas station for like six months and mom was like “boy you need to figure out what you are going to do”. Thinking back I know she did this on purpose because I found this magazine at our house and the Atlanta Institute of Music was in it. It was a school that was specialized, you could go there and study just guitar, or bass or voice, etc. Everyone who went there were rock and roll guys. My uncle Dwayne and my aunt lived down there and my mom knew that, so when I told her I wanted to go to school there, she said “ok let’s talk about it”. I really think she put that magazine there on purpose.

The first day of school in Atlanta, I met this guitar player named Nick, and he saw I had a guitar and asked if I was bass player. I said yes and then he opened up my tape collection and was shocked by all the different music I had. He then invited me to come jam with him and his drummer. We hit it off and met up the next day to jam and it was the most cohesive music experience I had ever had at that point in my life. We started a band called Skindeep, brought in a singer (I was the main bass player and songwriter at the time) and we became the biggest band in Atlanta within a year. We opened up for Van Halen, Alice in Chains and tons of bands touring all over the Southeast. We went to New York and played CBGB’s, L.A. and played The Roxy and Whiskey A Go Go. I was meeting tons of people and I wasn’t even twenty years old yet. That’s how my music business experience really started and from then on I was one of the more popular musicians in Atlanta. Still to this day, I have fans from then.

What did you do after Skindeep?

I was with Skindeep for five years and I knew during the last couple of years with the band that I wanted to do my own thing. I was writing all the music and I wanted to sing so I created a funk band called Beehive and ultimately got a record deal in Nashville so I ended up moving there. I was there for almost ten years and toured all over the world. I also played guitar for a Grammy-winning Christian artist, Rebecca St. James, for years. Her dad started a label and signed me and some of the guys in her band as a band called Fusebox and we put out a couple of albums. I learned a lot during that time and the most important lesson was that I didn’t have to have a record deal to be successful. I wasn’t happy with the music I was doing and I was on the road 300 dates a year at time. So I decided to move to St. Augustine and make a fresh start.

What did you do when you came to St. Augustine?

I moved here and got a job at a church as a music director and then started to play the music scene here. I will always give St. Augustine the credit for helping me find my voice. This is where I decided to become the soul man and be better than anybody else doing it.

How do you like living in St. Augustine?

I love this town. I love the music community here and all over north Florida, but I have to give St. Augustine props because it really has been huge for me. I have a lot of great friends here and there are a lot of talented people here. My dreams have always been much bigger than one place, but I found a hub here where I can really hone my skills. I figured myself out here and it’s been awesome.

What’s your goal with your music?

To take my show all over the country

Are you still writing?

I’m always writing. My new CD ShagShuffleShimmyShakeSwing Vol. 1 is all my originals. I actually have a lot of music ready for Vol. 2 too. At my shows, I perform a mixture of covers and original music. As long as people can dance, they are happy.