I was born on Christmas Eve evening 1950, in a three room 2nd floor corner apartment above a butcher shop in South Philly. There was a blizzard and my mother couldn’t get to the hospital (my father was with the Navy in Korea), so I was delivered by the butcher’s wife, my grandmother, aunt and 2-year old sister in attendance.
Early in life we moved to the suburbs where I barely escaped a life as a juvenile delinquent. Writing and radio and music were my saviors. In 1968 my first poem to be published, “The Twelfth Day of Never,” appeared in the national anthology Encounter. Other poems appeared in Generations and Patterns. During the Vietnam War I served in the Army as a tank recovery/repair/driver specialist (1970-72).
In 1973 I realized a life-long desire as I began a thirty plus-year career as a D.J. on the radio, as Billy James. I also did extensive club/disco work and helped write the book on beat mixing. My job has carried me from South Jersey, to Philadelphia, to Houston, to Seattle, b