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I was recently introduced to Bill Leslie and his music when I was asked to review his newest CD, “Blue Ridge Reunion,” an album I immediately fell in love with. World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma calls Bill “one of the greats in modern Celtic music,” but music is not Bill’s only career. Bill Leslie is also a television news anchor on WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina who began his career in radio news with John Tesh! An incredibly gifted musician and all-around nice guy, I think you’ll enjoy this rather unique interview.
KP: First of all, congratulations on hitting #1 on the New Age Reporter charts for September 2008 with “Blue Ridge Reunion.” It’s an incredibly good album, and it’s great to see it getting the recognition it deserves! Let’s talk a bit about the inspiration for the album and its companion book.
Bill: Thank you very much, Kathy. The album and book are both a tribute to my dad who was a talented artist who painted mountain watercolors. My dad died suddenly when I was a teenager and I never had a chance to say “goodbye.” That has haunted me for years. By revisiting his favorite landscapes and hiking trails, working with his watercolors and other paintings I was inspired to write a batch of new songs along with essays and poetry for the book. My goal was to express with music and words what my father expressed with his paintings. The experience created a geyser of creativity and emotion which I tried to capture in the book and CD. It was truly a reunion of spirits – a Blue Ridge Reunion - and one that I will never forget. When the promoter of the album, Ed Bonk, called to tell me it had hit number one I couldn’t talk because my voice was choked with emotion.
KP: The book is equally stunning. I expected a soft-bound book, but it’s a gorgeous coffee-table style art book with 124 pages of paintings by your dad and poems, essays, and recollections by you. In a big way, it is the story of both of your lives during that period of time. It’s such a beautiful way to preserve your dad’s legacy as well as to bring closure for yourself. I would imagine that he’s looking down on you with a very big smile! Where can people find the book?
Bill: It was just released one week ago. Right now we're targeting it as a regional book. Most of the NC stores have it along with the various state museums in NC. I am going to make it available this week directly on my website at www.billleslie.com. If we sense a national interest we will pursue Amazon and Barnes & Noble but right now our book volume is so low (4,000 copies) that we're concentrating on the Southeast. We do have a wholesale distributor who can ship the book anywhere: Parnassus Books - lmendenhall@sc.rr.com
KP: It sounds like your roots in North Carolina run very deep. Have you lived there all of your life?
Bill: Yes, I am a Tar Heel born and bred! I did take a detour for nine months in Norfolk and three years in Houston shortly after college. I’m a University of North Carolina grad and a huge basketball fan.
KP: Some of the fans of your music may not realize that you are also a television news anchor for WRAL in Raleigh, NC. How did you get started in network news?
Bill: My broadcasting career began in high school. I wrote and recorded a song about a girlfriend. The record received airplay throughout NC and the Southeast. The experience put me in contact with lots of DJ’s, one of whom allowed me to read news late at night. I was immediately hooked on the business. Later in college at UNC, I befriended fellow broadcast majors Rick Dees and Ken Lowe. We became radio buddies and worked at the same stations. Dees went on to become one of the biggest names in radio. Ken was the guy who started both HGTV and the Food Network. They are still both very close friends. In fact, we spent the weekend together recently in the NC mountains. After winning some radio news awards, I was recruited to do television news
KP: Are you still doing a lot of environmental reporting? From reading your website, it sounds like you’ve covered a lot of really important environmental issues.
Bill: Yes, I’m still doing several environmental documentaries a year. Early in my television career, I was one of the first full-time broadcast environmental reporters in the country. I have a real passion for the issue. We have a beautiful state in North Carolina but we need to do more to protect water and air quality from the mountains to the coast.
KP: You have won a very impressive assortment of awards for journalism as well as for your music. Are you a perfectionist or is excellence something that’s in your nature and drives you?
Bill: My personal philosophy as a journalist is “to be fearless in the pursuit of truth.” I am a perfectionist if it is something I care deeply about. I am driven and highly competitive,
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