Billy Neblett

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