Billy Horne

William Horne was born on October 24 1928 in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was the last son of an African-American family of eleven children, whose mother was a very religious person in the Baptist church. Billy Horne once recounted in an interview: “Being born in the South, I got so tired of the suppression that’s been done to the black people, the humiliation that was put upon you as a young man and as a child that frustrated me… I thought… there must be a better place than this!” He was playing in a club in Miami Beach called Bucky’s Place. There was a band called T.N.T Tribble & the Five Sticks of Dynamite (whom Frank Motley had made his first records with on RCA Victor many years earlier), playing alternating sets with his trio. After the gig, Tribble asked: “What are you gonna do when you finish here? And do you wanna go to Canada with me?” Billy answered “Where is that?” (laughing)

He arrived in November 1957 playing piano with TNT Tribble & the Five Sticks of Dynamite. The band was booked for a four-week engagement at the Esquire Show Bar, but was so popular that they were held-over for a total of six! Billy became a landed immigrant in 1959 and recalls: “I came over and I was so impressed with the friendliness, and for me this was it! People was friendly, the different culture, I was fascinated by that!” He was a contemporary of Oliver Jones, and like him, was also a pupil of Daisy Sweeney-Peterson, Oscar’s much-loved sister. Billy’s debut recording — a great jump-blues single called “Blues from the Housetop” recorded with B.T. Lundy (tenor sax), Buddy Johnson (trumpet), Charlie Biddle (bass) & Clyde Duncan (drums) was released in 1961. “Route 66“, which was released two years later on his second LP, The Voice of Billy Horne with his new combo consisting of: Charlie Biddle (bass), Nelson Symonds (gtr) & Charlie Duncan (drums). In 1974, he briefly appeared in the movie The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (based on a novel by Montreal’s own Mordecai Richler). From 1975-78 Billy ‘Scorpio’ Horne played piano in the ground-floor lounge at Rockhead’s Paradise. By the 1980s he was working with jazz drummers Normand Villeneuve & Charlie Duncan.
-Alexander Taylor