Bill Chinnock, RIP

Some more images of Bill from the Margaret Potter Tribute Concert which was held on May 15, 1994:










I got an email today that musician Bill Chinnock passed away. I can't tell you how saddened this news made me. Bill Chinnock was someone I met back in 1982 on one of my visits to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ. This is THE club that fine tuned my photography, and Bill Chinnock was one of the musicians that I loved to photograph. He was so talented, charasmatic, nice, helpful and really handsome. Everytime he would play in the area that was my home (the NJ Shore at the time) I would go see him and photograph him. Unfortunately, looking back, it was never enough for me.Several years ago, he called me from his home in Maine and asked if I would photograph him the next time he comes to the area for some new press photos. On the day he was to come to town, he called me to say he was tied up and was going to have to use some of my older images of him.
There are so many talented musicians from the NJ Shore. Some who have moved away, some who have passed away,some who still call it home. These are all the men and women who I credit with the work I am doing today. I am fortunate to make part of my living as a concert photographer and have shot 1000's of musicians. And even though I studied photography at one of the greatest photographic colleges in the world-Rochester Institute of Technology- the education I got and what I learned by shooting these people will forever be one of the greatest moments of my life.
RIP Bill. You will be missed. You touched many with your words and music. Probably more than you ever realized.

Taken from Backstreets.com

VINI LOPEZ ON BILL CHINNOCK
"The Boss before Bruce"
Before drummer Vini "Maddog" Lopez joined Springsteen in bands like Child, Steel Mill, and the E Street Band, he played in Bill Chinnock's post-Storytellers outfit, the Downtown Tangiers Band. Lopez talked to Backstreets last night after learning of Chinnock's death:

I met Bill in 1965 at a teenage dance on the boardwalk in Belmar, NJ. I auditioned for his band, the Storytellers. I didn't get the job because I wouldn't play "Wipeout." So Chip Gallagher got the gig.

Bill, truly, was one of my oldest friends. Bill was the BOSS before Bruce. You had to do it his way. He always made you a living with music. We did so many shows together all over the Northeast.

He wrote so many great songs all through his life. I hope that those songs never get forgotten. I will never forget them.

When I first met Bruce and we formed the band Child, the first song that we learned was a song by Bill Chinnock, "Crown Liquor." We still do that song in Steel Mill today. Now I want to learn "There's a Lion in the Park."

The man and his music will be sorely missed by all who knew him.

Visit BTX on www.backstreets.com for more tributes to Bill.

-March 9, 2007


BADLANDS
Bill Chinnock, rest in peace
Forty years ago in Asbury Park, a skinny kid with a guitar fronted a band with Danny Federici on organ, Vini Lopez on drums, and Garry Tallent on bass. That kid: Billy Chinnock.

When Chinnock left Jersey for Maine, the other guys found their way to Bruce Springsteen. But in Shore bands like the Storytellers, the Downtown Tangiers Band, and Glory Road -- which also featured future E Streeter David Sancious -- Chinnock played with them first.

Today, we've learned that he has just died at 59. As reported by Bangor, Maine's WLBZ, Chinnock has taken his own life, after suffering from Lyme disease.

A longtime Maine resident, Chinnock was rightfully honored late last year as one of the Creators of the Sound of Asbury Park, with a permanent monument on the boardwalk listing his name. But it wasn't just those early years on the Shore for which he's known. Chinnock had a lengthy solo career, with an Emmy to his name, releasing albums numbering in the double digits over the last three decades. He recorded on labels such as Epic, Rounder, and Atlantic (including 1978's Badlands , which came out before Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town), and in later years he established his own label.

Backstreet Records carries Bill's last album, Livin' in the Promised Land; that and more CDs are available from Bill's own East Coast Records. His website has lots to read, including an interesting discography, and his memories of the Upstage and Stone Pony, for starters. Also see interviews with him in Backstreets #23 and Backstreets #28.

So soon after Big Danny Gallagher, another Asbury Park legend is gone. Our hearts go out to Billy's family and friends.
-March 8, 2007