Hillie Bills
Lajitas, Texas, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2013
Music
Press
I met Hillie Bills on top of a mesa in the back-country of Lajitas, Texas. Her soft and sultry voice accompanied dinner conversation as guests of the Lajitas Golf Resort & Spa enjoyed their Stargazer Mesa Dinner, an evening of “cowboy style” cuisine, live music, and nothing but open sky and stars for miles.
Hillie performed songs from her most recent album “In Tarnation”, a collection of ballads with a country/singer-songwriter vibe, perfect for a road trip, day of relaxation, or in my case, the music necessary to make my Big Bend experience complete.
The album begins with “Don’t Sell Out, Buy In”, an upbeat description of a chaotic encounter with John Wayne and number of other western heroes. The combination of electric and acoustic guitar, accordion, and Hillie’s voice immediately take you on a western adventure and draw the listener into the adventure that is to come within the rest of the album.
Photo courtesy of www.hilliebills.com
Skipping over to track four, “Turkey Vultures”, we are thrown into a ballad similar to what might have been heard in an old-time ghost town saloon. The dainty piano and talk of “Jack on the rocks” should get visitors of the Lajitas Resort ready for a night at the Thirsty Goat Saloon, and gives those who have not been able to make the trip to Big Bend the push to try out that dive bar you have been meaning to go to for a while.
Slowing down with the seventh track, “There Ain’t” describes heartbreak and mistakes that every broken-hearted girl and guy can relate to. Staying true to her American sound, Hillie’s voice echoes with emotion. Definitely one of my favorite tracks of the album.
Hillie ties her album together with “un Epílogo”, a haunting and soft song reminiscent of “cantina songs of 1940s Hollywood”, the perfect ending to an amazing album that I consider to be a Big Bend experience in itself.
Despite her quiet song and guitar, Hillie was anything but background music at the Stargazer Mesa Dinner. Her voice set the theme for the night: peace, relaxation, and vacating from the fast-paced lifestyle that seemed to disappear once I set foot in the Big Bend area. Hillie spent the evening telling the Stargazer audience stories through her music, and without a doubt, was the cherry-on-top to a perfect evening.
You can find Hillie’s music on Itunes or on her official website. - Flattlands Travel Blog
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
Photos
Bio
Anyone who knows Hillie knows that her life
has had too many chapters to fit into a handful of socially acceptable words.
She is Hudson-Valley
raised, Continentally-bred, Western-minded, Texas-beholden.
Growing up, she was steeped in classical piano training and
ecclesiastic song. She sang in
some of the worlds most renowned cathedrals well into her college years, at
which point,(and in a church), she haphazardly stumbled
into blues music and wandered away from the harmonic refineries of centuries past and fell enamored of
an American sound only recently laid to rest.
At age 23, she attended her first rodeo and from her farmland
home in Upstate New York, life took a distinctly philosophical turn to the
West. At age 24 she accidentally
began writing songs in an effort to express her sentiments on the humorous,
joyous, and frequently disappointing adventure known to some as Life. She first moved to Texas at age 27, at
which point the songs started writing her. At age 30, she started performing them.
Stints returning to New York, venturing to Los Angeles and into
the Sonoran Desert of Arizona
did little to quench Hillies thirst for a life along some Sergio Leone-esque code of principles,
so she has moved to the Badlands region of Texas and now lives a stones throw
from Mexico, and within earshot of the best music and the finest conversation
shes ever heard.
Band Members
Links
