Born William Marburg
in Riverwood,
Maryland, Bill Clifton, like
many budding bluegrass artists, grew up listening to bluegrass on the
radio.By the 1950s, he was
laying down vinyl with The Dixie Mountain Boys.At the age of 17, he wanted to
meet A.P.
Carter
, so he went to his house in Maces Springs, Virginia.The two
of them became such close friends that when Carter
passed away in 1960, Clifton was asked to be a pall
bearer.A year later, he
organized the first bluegrass music festival in Luray, Virginia.He became quite literally an
ambassador of the genre, as his family emigrated
to England
a couple of years later and work followed on the club circuit.His subsequent stint with the Peace
Corps allowed him to spread the bluegrass gospel to such exotic locales as New Zealand and the Philippines.Clifton
makes his home in Mendota,
Virginia, and still performs
to this day.
