So to begin, I know you're a musician, so I wanted to see do you actually play any instruments or what instruments do you play knowing that you're a musician?

- Well, I play all the woodwind instruments.

Nothing professionally.

So when I fix an instrument, it is my living, I fix the instruments and I play them.

And so after I'm done fixing that, I'll play test it, make sure it plays well and then always leave the final test up to the customer.

- I love that.

- Yeah.

- And thinking of customers, I know you own a music shop that's one of your main endeavors.

Can you give us a little bit of background on like how this music shop came to existence, your services, why it's so important for the community?

- I'll go right back to the beginning and when I was graduating from high school, my music teacher found out I wasn't going to college for music.

And she was concerned.

She knew music was a big part of my life in high school and she encouraged me.

In fact, she demanded, in the middle of a lesson to go into the guidance office and look at the brochures for different music colleges.

Well, I came across a brochure for SUNY Morrisville and a two-year program called Music Instrument Technology where they teach woodwind, brass, and string repair.

And so I thought that kind of sounded nice.

You know, I like fixing things and I was good with my hands.

So because of her encouragement, and her name was Margaret Coker, she was a worldly woman.

She was all of like 22-years-old.

So she was like somebody I looked up to, you know, she was an older person and I really looked up to her.

- An elder.

- Yes, my elder at 22-years-old, I'd being 17-years-old at the time, you know, took her advice.

And I called the college after I graduated.

I had my diploma in hand and I went to every music store in the capital district here and nobody hired me.

- Hm.

- So that was unexpected.

I figured if I had a diploma, I would get a job, right?

Well, so I opened up a shop temporarily.

So 46 years later, I still don't have a job, but I have a wonderful shop that my wife and I we raised our four children and now we have five grandchildren.

So you can imagine the journey.

- Yeah.

- From that that first day of opening up the shop and everything in between.

- So I know you have an amazing program called Horns for Haiti and I wanna talk a little bit about that.

So can you give us some history on the program?

- Sure, my shop has been all over the place and I would move from a location to location, but back in the 80s it was on 19th Street in Watervliet.

And it was a small, tiny little shop.

And we were in close proximity to St. John's Episcopal Church in Troy.

So they were just right over the bridge in Troy.

And so they knew about my shop.

And they also have a sister parish in Lascahobas which is up in the mountains in Haiti.

And so they would frequently go down there with their church mission and sometimes bring instruments down.

If a parishioner donated an instrument, well they would bring it over to my shop and we just, you know, check it over and we'd play it and make sure it was okay, throw a couple of reeds in the case, make sure everything was cool and then they would carry it down to Haiti.

And so in 2014, the director for that program approached me at my shop, which is now under Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs.

And she said, "You know, those instruments we sent down, well, they're all in disrepair."

And, you know, it was kind of sad.

And she was sad about it.

I said, "I'll just go down there and fix 'em."

Kind of like off the cuff.

And she said, "Would you?"

So I went home, discussed it my wife.

And as it turned out then in the next April I went down with their mission, only one time I was gonna go, just one time and I figured I'd fix some instruments, show the teacher how to do some minor repairs, call it a day and have some stories to tell.

Well, it didn't work out that way because the teachers was there, the music teacher, I met him, Maestro Markins, there was a translator there, Rodney Gente, and six young men from the high school, from the Holy Spirit High School in Lascahobas who attended the workshop.

Those young men were so brilliant, so engaged.

They were better than any apprentice I think I've ever had in my shop.

It's just the way they were picking up things.

And this is, of course, with a language barrier.

- [Jade] Mm-hm.

- So I decided I have to come back.

And then when I was on the plane back to JFK, I was just thinking about it, just processing everything that all this wonderful stuff that has happened.

And that's when I came up with the idea of Horns for Haiti.

- And why do you think this is important for the Haitian community, having a program like Horns for Haiti available?

- Well, first of all, music is huge in Haiti.

And you wake up in the morning, the roosters are crowing it's be like four or five o'clock in the morning, the dogs start barking and then the churches, the music comes out of the churches.

All the choirs, they're all rehearsing.

And so that begins the day musically.

For me, it's just me taking this all in and the motorcycles going by the compound and they all have music blaring off the back of their motorcycles.

So it's a no-brainer for me to come down or to go down to Haiti and support what they've already been doing.

- Two of the six men that you were mentoring, or under your apprenticeship, actually opened up a shop.

Do you wanna give us a little bit more details about that shop?

- Well, we were talking about it for a long time and every time I would go down there I would encourage them, you know, "This would be a good business" because there's a lot of non-for-profits in Haiti.

You could tap into them.

They're also right near the Dominican Republic.

There's just a half an hour from the border and there's a lot of tourism in Dominican Republic.

So I said, "Start a shop, people will find out who you are and what you're doing and the musicians will seek you out" 'cause that's what happened to me.

And it was 2020, right at the start of of COVID, they called me up, or excuse me, they didn't call me, they emailed me, they couldn't call me, and said, "We started a shop."

And I said, "Well, okay, great.

Name it, let's brand it right away, okay?

You name it, you get some business cards, you start, let's do this professionally."

And so they got back to me and they said, "We named the shop."

And I said, "What is it?"

And they said, "Shop Billy."

And I said, "No, no, you don't name it after me.

You name it after you or your family."

And they said, "No professor, we don't name it after you.

We name it after your son."

So they named it after my son and they said, "Because you teach your son and someday we're gonna teach our son."

And so it was more of a concept, "Shop Billy," or what they say, "Billy Shop," translated.

And that's the concept.

We're going to teach our sons and daughters how to, and then they'll teach their sons and daughters and it'll go on and on and on.

- Yeah, pass the knowledge on Keep it going.

- Yes.

How wonderful is that?

- That is a very wonderful.

Well, thank you for all you do.

So before we wrap up, I wanna let audience know like what are some events and programs you may have coming up where they could either volunteer or donate or be involved somehow?

- Well, the Saratoga commUNity and beyond has been great for donating instruments.

Okay, if they're in disrepair, we'll either fix 'em or we'll send 'em down to Billy Shop and they'll fix 'em.

So they'll be fixed and in the hands of kids within a year or so.

- Well, Thank you Bill.

I appreciate that.

And folks donate, definitely try to donate some instruments and help this amazing nonprofit out.

And thank you Bill for taking the time to talk to us Today.

- My pleasure.

- Appreciate you.

- My pleasure.