Nice to meet you!
I’m Billie Feather, a multi-instrumentalist, professional musician, music educator, songwriter, and lover of mountain air.
This is my musical journey:
Billie is…
a singer-songwriter, guitarist, banjoist, bassist who originally hails from Johnstown, PA. Raised in the beautiful Pennsylvania mountains and surrounded by a family of avid music lovers, Billie’s love of performing music in all forms was fostered.
Saying goodbye to their ancestral home in the Allegheny mountains, Billie’s family relocated during her elementary school years to North Carolina, where she found herself surrounded by the rich musical landscape that flourishes in the Tarheel State - from the old traditional mountain music of the Appalachians to the Piedmont’s rich blues and jazz traditions.
In her sixth grade year, Billie began saving for her first guitar by doing odd jobs and begging her parents for music lessons. Her parents finally gave into their daughter’s pestering for lessons and it happily grew into a lifelong passion of music performance and songwriting.
For her senior year in high school, Billie was accepted into the prestigious music conservatory at The University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Classical Guitar Performance and remained there for her college studies. During her years at UNCSA, Billie was a guest classical guitarist in The Carolina Wind Symphony and has been able to perform all over North Carolina as both a solo artist and in classical guitar ensembles. After graduating in 2006, Billie expanded her musical studies by learning the double bass, electric bass, banjo, and mandolin.
After graduation, Billie founded a private teaching studio in Winston-Salem, NC and began performing in several local bands - most notably the bo-stevens (a North Carolina honky-tonk band) and The Darnell Woodies (an old-time Appalachian punk string band). During her tenure in these bands, Billie was able to tour the United States and Europe.
While in Winston-Salem, she began studying stringed instrument repair at Separk Music. Eventually, Billie was asked to take a position in Chapel Hill, NC as instrument repair technician at Wes Lambe Guitars. Currently, Billie operates her own stringed instrument repair shop in Durham, NC.
Eventually, Billie began to hear the call of academia once more and enrolled in North Carolina Central University for a second undergraduate degree with a focus in jazz guitar and arranging.
Graduating with honors, she was invigorated to share her love of jazz with her community and students by starting a local Beginner’s Jazz Jam and a Suzuki Guitar Jazz Curriculum to keep jazz traditions alive for the next generation.
Merging her love of both classical and jazz, Billie returned to the UNC School of the Arts where she earned Master’s Degree in Guitar Performance and a Professional Artist Certificate in Recording Engineering and Guitar.
An active performer, Billie can be found in a variety of musical groups and settings. See more about Billie’s bands in the “Projects” page and her songwriting examples in the “Songwriting” page.
You can find Billie at Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington where she teaches Group Guitar and UCORE Classes. Her previous appoint was at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina where she was the college, community music school, and Suzuki guitar professor.
Billie’s performances have been hailed as “spectacular, athletic, and... narrative and epic rather than simply a recreation of recorded work” and a “live music find and stage presence of the first order and deserves the stellar career that is clearly in front of her” by the Camel City Dispatch blog.
Find more about her musical work in this article by David Menconi: