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Bill Baldwin, Jr.

About Me

I’m told I was listening to great jazz at 2 – Illinois Jacquette, Vido Musso and all the Jazz at The Philharmonic musicians; At age 4, Lionel Hampton gave me my first set of drums; two live recordings fueled my passion for music: the ’38 Benny Goodman Carnegie Hall concert and Louis Armstrong’s “Ambassador Satch” released in 1955; joined the union at 12, recorded a couple of albums, did TV and by college, starting with Bob McDonald and the LA Valley College day band—I succeed Mel Lee in the drum chair, to USC—from ’62 to ’67, I played in one of the Bob Edmonson-Ollie Mitchell bands with guys like Pete Christlieb, Bob Harris, Ron Meyers, Dick Bellis, Jim Trimble, Harvey Newmark and a whole bunch of other terrific young LA-based players – Tom Scott was part of things near the end.

Then the War took me to Japan, and two years as DJ, and Sports reporter for Armed Forces Radio; where I had the pleasure of co-hosting the Helen Merrill show on FEN. Talk about a great jazz singer and such a charming person to boot. Back to LA, a brief flirtation with making music my career, then met Noel Blanc and his dad, the legendary voice artist, Mel Blanc and decided my destiny lay elsewhere and said goodbye to playing seriously.

Today, I run a joint venture with Warner Bros. putting Mel Blanc’s Looney Tunes voices in games, toys, products and your wireless phone worldwide. I’ve directed and produced a long list of commercials and programs, love the internet and still see my best buddies from high school, but deep in my soul, I’ll always think of myself as a drummer, first. And of the many drummers I heard live over the years, Gene Krupa, Barrett Deems, Mel Lewis and Elvin Jones had the greatest impact. As a rhythm section, there wasn’t a better bass and drums combination than Sam Jones and Louis Hayes.