Grammy-winning guitarist Bill Mize is a son of Tennessee, and a fitting representative of his state’s rich musical heritage, from the greasy soul of Memphis, to the highland melodies of the mountains. His critically lauded fingerstyle compositions are fluid and intricate, and their delivery masterful. One suspects an influential teacher, and one would be right. “I received most of my musical education from a cheap Zenith radio,” says Mize, who as a child drifted off to sleep to the decidedly non-sleepy lullabyes emanating from Nashville’s WLAC and WSM and Knoxville’s WNOX.

Maybe that’s why critics speak of  his ability to “transport” the listener; the music itself has been transported. The links to his Tennessee roots are unmistakable, but so are the elements of the far wider musical realm he inhabits, and the mixture is as intoxicating as Tennessee moonshine. With a twist.

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Bill is a past winner of the National Fingerstyle Guitar Competition at The Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas and a frequent clinician and artist at acoustic guitar festivals around the US.  Bill received a GRAMMY Award for his collaboration with musician and storyteller David Holt on the recording Stellaluna, and has been featured on the popular guitar compilations "Windham Hill Guitar Sampler" and Narada's “Masters of the Acoustic Guitar”. In 2009 and 2015, Bill’s music appeared in the  Ken Burns documentaries “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea"  and “Country Music”. Mel Bay Productions transcribed Mize's second CD, "Tender Explorations," into a songbook, and his original compositions have been transcribed for Fingerstyle Guitar and Acoustic Guitar magazines.

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 “It was the mid-1950s when I first saw Elvis on TV. Although I was only three or four years old, I realized I had just witnessed something incredibly powerful, and for me music was what it was going to be all about.”

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