Billy Neal has been a regular performer at Vat 116 for several years. As I always say, he plays sax, guitar, and silly buggers.
The silly buggers bit goes back a long way!
Billy Neal was in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first person to cross the English Channel in a bathtub, which he did in 13 and a half hours in 1981!
Back then he was known as Bathtub Bill, as he travelled in his bathtub to many different countries. In 1983 he spent two and a half months navigating his bathtub from London to Helsinki, visiting 9 countries!
He has a facebook page of these exploits on Facebook at facebook.com/bathtubbill
On Bathtub Bill, I found this Youtube music video of Billy playing with a band in Poland in 2022. N'Oubliez Jamais which means 'We will never forget' in French.
Billy's daughter is good too, here is Letitia's version of Yesterday
Billy Neal is only here during summer, so catch him while you can. He swans off to Europe for their summer, a migratory bird is our Billy!
Billy is here until May, so catch him and Ayden while you can.
In Europe, Billy plays with bands generally, including large rock festivals. I hope when next home, Billy puts together a complete band. He already has the talented Ayden as guitarist, just needs drummer and bass! Billy these days plays with the fabulously talented guitarist, the 18 year old Ayden Lukacs, who does great work on Prince's Purple Rain, for example, which I took at Vat 116 which you can see here.
Billy and Ayden now play as The Baker Street Boys. They are now starting to play more of Billy's original songs. He has made several albums, one of which reached number 5 in Poland.
Billy Neal won $500 and a trophy (by public vote in the 2023 Rockingham Song Contest for 'What a summer we had'.
Catch Billy and Ayden before Billy leaves at the end of summer!
Here is one of my favourites: Billy with daughter Letitia, Chicago in the fall
"We wrote this especially for the 20th All Souls Chicago Zaduszki Festival. A classic love story tune about an Aussie guy in a long distance relationship with a Chicago girl. I asked my daughter (then 16) to Demo the female part in order to send it to KAEYRA (Caroline Baran) USA American Idol 2023 in preparation to perform it with her at the festival.
Letitia's version blew me away, so after flying 11,000 miles to Chicago to perform it, I returned and worked on the father daughter version, here it is !"