Bill Bentley was born in Houston, Texas in 1950 and attended Lamar High School. He commenced playing drums at an early age. His music career started at the age of fifteen, when he interned at the KYOK-AM[2] radio station in Houston.[3] While in high school, he formed a band called The Aggregation, the local rivals of which were The Coachmen, from neighbouring Lee High School and featuring guitarist Billy Gibbons, later of ZZ Top.[4] Bentley grew up in the newspaper business; his father, Bud Bentley, was a cartoonist and later the art director at the Houston Post.[1][5]
Bentley attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas and later the University of Texas at Austin, where he joined a band of English majors called The Bizarros. The band was notable for including Velvet Underground founding member Sterling Morrison.[1][6] Bentley had also developed an admiration for the 13th Floor Elevators during the Sixties, following the band extensively to dozens of Houston concerts starting at La Maison in 1965 on through to their last performances at Love Street Light Circus and Feel Good Machine in 1968.
Career
Journalism
Bentley had developed typesetting skills, and was able to use these as an entry to a position in 1974 as the music editor at the Austin Sunbi-weekly newspaper.[1] In 1978, Bentley became the in-house publicist for KLRN-TV in Austin, as well as for the stations' long-running television show Austin City Limits.
In 1980, he became the music editor at the L.A. Weekly, being one of six people forming the core of the first editorial staff at that paper.[7]
In 1990, upon learning of the financial distress of Roky Erickson, founder of the 13th Floor Elevators, Bentley organized a tribute album for him, for the purpose of raising funds. The result was Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson, released on Sire Records, part of the Warner Bros. Records group with which Bentley was then associated. Similarly, in 1999, when Bentley learned that Moby Grape co-founder Skip Spence was seriously ill with cancer and facing mounting medical bills, Bentley again organized a tribute album: More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album, released on Birdman Records.[10] In 1992, Bentley was instrumental in restarting the career of Jimmy Scott, acting as executive producer and writing the liner notes for Scott's comeback album, All The Way, which was also released on Sire Records.
Bentley is also notable for his efforts to enhance public appreciation of the contributions of particular artists. For example, he is the executive producer of a retrospective Roky Erickson compilation, I Have Always Been Here Before: The Roky Erickson Anthology (Shout! Factory, 2005)[11] and a tribute album to Doug Sahm, Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm (Vanguard, 2009), recorded and released nearly ten years after Sahm's death. Similarly, Bentley was associated with the 1992 compilation of O.V. Wright material, Soul of O.V. Wright, released 12 years after Wright's death, at the age of 41.[12]
Bentley was with Warner Bros. Records from 1986 to 2006, at which point he became the personal public relations representative of Neil Young,[13] as well as the chief executive officer of Sonic Boomers Inc.,[14] an internet-based music news and information site, modeled "as something like Pitchfork Media for the older set, or maybe something like No Depression on the Web."[4][15] He also became the A & R Director at Vanguard Records, where his first signing was Merle Haggard.[3] He joined Concord Records's A&R department in 2015, and was A&R director for Alejandro Escovedo's Burn Something Beautiful release. He also co-produced the 6-CD set Otis Redding Live at the Whisky a Go Go: The Complete Recordings. Bentley remains a longtime contributor of music reviews and music articles to the Austin Chronicle.[16] and writes the monthly reviews column "Bentley's Bandstand" at www.americanahighways.org.
Bentley's first book, Smithsonian Rock & Roll: Live and Unseen, was published by Smithsonian Books in October 2017. He is presently writing for Neil Young Archives, and started Water Bros. Films in 2019. The company is developing a documentary on longtime music manager Elliot Roberts (Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Geffen-Roberts Management, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and others), who died in 2019. Bentley produced a second tribute album for the late singer Roky Erickson, titled May the Circle Remain Unbroken, released by Light in the Attic Records July 2021. Bill Bentley also produced the Lou Reed tribute album The Power of the Heart, released by Light in the Attic Records on April 20, 2024, featuring Keith Richards, Rufus Wainwright, Rickie Lee Jones and other artists.
2016 Live at the Whisky a Go Go: The Complete Recordings Otis Redding, Co-Producer (Stax Records)
Light in the Attic Records:
2021 May the Circle Remain Unbroken: A Tribute to Roky Erickson, Album Producer. Featuring Billy F Gibbons, Lucinda Williams, Charlie Sexton & Alison Mosshart, Chelsea Wolfe, Ty Segall, Mark Lanegan & Lynn Castle, Jeff Tweedy, Margo Price, Neko Case, Brogan Bentley, The Black Angels and Gary Clark Jr. & Eve Monsees. (Vinyl, CD and Digital) (July 17, 2021)
2024 The Power of the Heart: A Tribute to Lou Reed, Album Producer. Featuring Keith Richards, Maxim Ludwig & Angel Olsen, Rufus Wainwright, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Bobby Rush, Rickie Lee Jones The Afghan Whigs, Mary Gauthier, Lucinda Williams, Automatic, Rosanne Cash, Brogan Bentley (Vinyl, CD and Digital).
Smithsonian Books:
2017 Smithsonian Rock & Roll: Live and Unseen by Bill Bentley (October 24, 2017)
^ abSXSW, Bill Bentley Profile[permanent dead link], "Making Something Outta Nothing" session, SXSW, March 19, 2010; www.sxsw.com. Haggard's debut on Vanguard became his highest-charting record in twenty-five years: see Deborah Evans Price, Merle Haggard scores highest solo bow in 25 years. Reuters, May 7, 2010; www.reuters.com. When Concord Music Group purchased Vanguard Records, Bentley became senior director of A&R at Concord.
^Albert Franklin Bentley III, professionally known as "Bud" Bentley (1913–2006) spent nearly forty years at the Houston Post, retiring in 1983. He was a member of the Baseball Writers' Association of America and a founding member of the Press Club of Houston. See Obituary of Albert Franklin Bentley III, originally published December 28, 2006 in the Houston Chronicle, as reprinted in "Toasted Posties: Former Employees of the Houston Post, which died a cruel death in April of 1995"; www.toastedposties.blogspot.com.
^At the time, Morrison was a doctoral student in medieval studies. His last engagement with the Velvet Underground was in 1971 in Houston, after which Morrison accompanied the band to the airport and advised them, as they were departing, that he was leaving the band permanently and remaining in Houston. See Sterling Morrison.
^Founded by former Warner Bros. Records A&R Vice-President David Katznelson, who also acted as Executive Producer of the Spence tribute. Katznelson and Bentley had worked together at Warner Bros. Records, with Katznelson departing in 2000 and Bentley in 2006. Katznelson and Bentley worked together on various projects, including the 2009 tribute to Doug Sahm, Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm, where both acted as two of four co-producers. In addition, the Sahm tribute was released on Vanguard Records, which Bentley had recently joined as A&R Director and where fellow co-producer Stephen Brower was Vice-President of Marketing and A&R Development.
^According to reviewer Mark Deming, "Erickson's body of recorded work has long merited an intelligently assembled critical overview, and thankfully Bill Bentley, a longtime Erickson partisan who assembled the 1990 multi-artist compilation Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson, has created just such an album with I Have Always Been Here Before: The Roky Erickson Anthology. See Mark Deming, Review of I Have Always Been Here Before: The Roky Erickson Anthology; www.allmusic.com.
^ abHouston-based Wright is described as "one of the most underrated deep soul singers of his era". See Stewart Mason, Review of Soul of O.V. Wright; www.allmusic.com. Wright died of a heart attack in 1980, at the age of forty-one; see O.V. Wright.
^A posthumous release of Stevie Ray Vaughan slow blues material, some previously unreleased. See Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Review of Blues at Sunrise; www.allmusic.com.
^A box set of Vaughan material, containing three CDs and one DVD, two thirds of which was previously unreleased. See Richie Unterberger, Review of SRV; www.allmusic.com.
^Described as "Inspired by ZZ Top's classic boogie rock tribute to border radio, "Heard It on the X"...(Heard It on the X is) a salute to the heyday of AM radio on the Texas/Mexico border, when rock & roll, blues, country, jazz, Western swing, and mariachi mixed freely." See Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Review of Heard It on the X; www.allmusic.com.
^Originally recorded in 1969, in the home of Brian Wilson, and co-produced by Wilson, but not released until 2008. Kalinich reciting poetry against a musical background by Brian Wilson and then wife Marilyn. An album of "music and psych-poetry"; see Record Summary at Light In The Attic Records; www.lightintheattic.net.
