"Reaching Out To Me" (1977) Bili Thedford

Описание: Bili Thedford
"Reaching Out To Me"
Soloist: Bili Thedford
Written by: Bili & Dona Thedford
Background Vocals: Dona Thedford, Sherlie Matthews, Bili Thedford, Jim Gilstrap, Pat Henderson
Images Copyright: Bili Redd Thedford. Photo by Tom Sanders/TomSandersPhoto.com
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©1977 Good News Records/distributed by Myrrh Records
Bili “Redd” Thedford was born in Los Angeles in July 5th, 1942. His mother died a month after delivering him. He and his sister Carol, who is a year and half older than him, were handed to a series of foster families in the early years of their lives.
“My father dropped us off at daycare when I was two or three of years old and never came back,” he recalls. “Some of the people that raised us were difficult,” he says. “They would take us in as foster children to supplement their income or for whatever social reasons. The first seven, eight years, were pretty rough times. We had some horrendous things, child-abusive situations.”
In the midst of such torments, lacking the slightest encouragement, a passion for music emerged within him instinctively: “As a child I whistled a lot. I just couldn’t stop. We went on long car trips and they’d say: ‘Stop that whistling!’ But every song or tune I heard, I whistled.”
“I was about eight years when things began to take a turn for the better and life began to be a little nicer for both my sister and me,” he remembers. This sunnier chapter started when they arrived at the Gentry’s, a couple he describes as “beautiful, incredible people.”
“I think they may’ve had some information as to how we had been raised and the trials me sister and I had been through. They were a complete 180 from what we had been experiencing. All of a sudden we could be children, we could have fun, we could live, we could run and we could play,” he says.
This warmer home was also his place of birth as a performer. “When we got to the Gentry’s, my sister and I would sit up these orange crates in the garage and put a sheets over them,” he says. “I would get on top of these crates, wearing a cowboy hat, vest, boots and gun, and I would sing cowboy songs and she would dance, because she wanted to be a ballerina.”
At age 10, he moved in with his maternal grandmother, Ann Higgins. “When I turned 13, I heard some guys singing in a doo-wop group and I said: ‘I’m supposed to be one of those guys!’ My uncle, the great drummer Billy Higgins, lived in the house with us and he would have a lot of musicians come over and practice.”
He often visited a neighbor who had a piano. He taught himself a few chords and sang what he heard in his new home. In 1957, his family relocated in Pacoima, where he ran into a partner from his high school in LA, named Leonard, and met other friends. The boys formed a vocal group. They sang under streetlights and serenaded at their girlfriends’ houses.
“In 1959 we met Johnny Otis and he took us to studios in Los Angeles and recorded us,” he says. “The company bought us suits and took us in the road with all the grown-up singers. We were just kids and we got to go out with professionals every night. They taught us how to deal with people and how to handle a crowd. It was great training that is hardly found today.”
He was a fulltime musician from the early 1960s to 1980. He went on the road as a bassist, percussionist or background singer for George Benson, Minnie Riperton, Boz Scaggs and Melissa Manchester, among many other artists.
“I was traveling with Andraé Crouch and the Disciples,” he says. “In our first tour out of the country we went to Indonesia and a few other places. That was around the late 60s or early 70s. Barack Obama was in elementary school in Jakarta. We sang for him then. I didn’t know him, but the reason I know we did was because we sang for every elementary in Jakarta.”
He considers the memories and the experiences of those years around the world to be invaluable. Nonetheless, the demise of his first marriage marked the end of the adventurous chapter in his life and the beginning of a homely one.
“I spent nine months a year out of the country,” he says. “I had a wife and three kids. Nine months is too long. You miss birthdays, holidays, graduations… When you came home, your wife is accustomed to being to boss. She runs the house.”
“We got married in 1965 and divorced in 1979 or 1980. When you’re young and have a little bit of money, all of a sudden it gets really crazy. I owned houses and all that stuff. What I pretty much did was tell her, because she was going to have the girls: ‘You guys can have pretty much all of it. Take my car and I’ll take my clothes and my instruments.’ I didn’t want to get into that battle of how do you split a dog.”
He passed away on January 30, 2026. He was 83 years old.