Bill Hunt was born on May 23rd, 1947 in Birmingham and was ELO's horn player and keyboarder from spring 1971 to July 1972. He attended Wingwood Brothers Comprehensive School and Birmingham School of Music where he learnt to play piano, harpsichord, tuba, french horn and hunting horn on a graduate course.

Bill played in a progressive rock quartet, called Hannibal, who released one album in 1970 entitled "Hannibal" on which he played hammond organ and french horn. After leaving The Electric Light Orchestra he helped Roy Wood to form Wizzard. In this formation Bill had the opportunity to show all his talents. Apart from his usual instruments he could be heard on trumpet, flugel horn, tenor horn, bugle, euphonium, little glass trumpet and backing vocals. He was also responsible for the brass arrangements together with Roy Wood. He had composed the most adventurous Wizzard track "The Carlsberg Special" which Madness could have easily performed because it was an early form of Ska. At the end of his Wizzard days he was only the piano player so he dropped out of the band in October 1973 to become a music teacher.

In 1989 Bill returned to the music business with the single "Crying In The Rain" (a cover version of The Everly Brothers hit) by Blessings In Disguise featuring Noddy Holder and Dave Hill, to name the band's full name. One year later Bill Hunt became more and more involved with Slade as their song contributor, with the first result being two Dave Hill / Bill Hunt compositions called "Red Hot" and "Lay Your Love On The Line" which were recorded by Slade and used as B-sides for their two singles lifted from their 1991 album "Wall Of Hits". When Noddy Holder left the group, they changed their name into Slade II, recording the Bill Hunt / Dave Hill composition "Hold On To Love" as their first single. Further Bill Hunt compositions went on limited release in Belgium for the singles "Black And White World" and "Who´s To Blame". Slade II then recorded their first album entitled "Keep On Rockin!" on which Bill Hunt co-composed eight out of the eleven songs included.

last modified: 26.02.2000