He is a bass player who grew up in Minnesota. His father was a jazz pianist who played in several bands and other members of his family include the keyboard player and singer Ricky Peterson and the guitarist and bass player Paul Peterson. He grew up in a musical family and by the time he was 9 he was singing national commercial spots.
He was taught the drums with tuition from Elliot Fine of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra and he also studied the keyboard with Ernie Garvin, who worked for CBS radio. After his father had bought a bass guitar in the hope that one of his children would want to learn it, Billy decided it was the instrument he wanted to concentrate on, but when he was 14 he found an upright bass his father had left at home which he decided he wanted to learn and that same year his mother taught him how to re-harmonise songs.
When he was 16 he toured with The Righteous Brothers and during the school terms he would play for local orchestras and bands. He also toured with the Lawrence Welk Show All Stars and once he’d finished school he began performing with the pianist Billy Wallace, who he stayed with until 1973.
He founded the band Natural Life who recorded three albums and toured the United States on several occasions with them. He met up with the guitarist Leo Kottke and worked as bassist on three of his albums and he was also the bassist on the multi-platinum Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan.
He joined the Gibson staff in 1976 and with them he conducted clinics and managed to perform music with artists such as B.B. King and Les Paul. He was introduced to the keyboard player Ben Sidran and they went into a collaboration that has remained until present day.
In 1981 he released the solo album Threshold of Surrender and toured and recorded throughout the 1980s with various artists. He also performed as a soloist and with a symphony orchestra in the same time-frame that he was recording radio and television commercials.
Steve Miller approached him in 1986 and asked him to become a member of The Steve Miller Band. With them he recorded Born to be Blue, The Steve Miller Band Box Set and Wide River, and toured from 1987 to 2000. He was approached by Prince to make string arrangement for Rosie Gaines of the New Power Generation and he re-harmonised Bryan Adam’s “Everything I Do, I Do It For You”.
Many of his original compositions can be heard on various recordings by different record labels. Through the course of his career he has performed with a myriad of artists ranging from Neil Young to Carlos Santana to Pete Seager to Mose Allison.
In 1996 he co-founded the Artists’s Quarter jazz club in Minnesota where he performs when he’s not touring.
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