Bill Van Riper

Back in 1996, we became friends and I loved watching you on stage playing for the Million Tiny Fingers Band. I ran across some photos of you today and it made me think of you. You are missed my friend.

...more than 10 years have past, and the whole place still misses his notes, and laughter...

Billy was my friend. I guess that kind of says it all. More than that, we were musicians together. We had that in common. We made great music together along with many others that made the music with us. Real music is like a snapshot in time. It comes and goes like we do. Billy's life was like that, a wonderful diamond in the rough, improv for those who were able to appreciate it. I feel sad about his loss and I am heart broken that I won't have the chance to make more music with him. I felt...

Billy, this is David Songer.
I don't know what to say. It's hard for me to remember when I first met you. It has been so long. We played together off and on through the years. I am shocked. I guess all I can say now is that I hope and pray the best for those who were closest to you. I know you are in a good place.
I feel sorry for myself in that you aren't here anymore. You were the best of us, I know you cannot see this but for those of us still here I will miss you. It scares me that...

BVR was truly about the nicest person my husband and I ever met. We're proud to say he was our friend.I can still see him sitting on our back deck listening to Firesign Theater with my husband and laughing that infectious laugh of his. Our youngest son, Scott, was a guitar player and he and Billy played guitar on our back deck. One of my fondest memories of Billy (and there were many!) was when he and Billy Chapman were on our pontoon boat serenading me on my birthday. I always thought...

I met Billy in Athens in 1977. He was sitting under a tree, smoking unfiltered Camels playing his guitar and I sat down to listen. He said, "Hey man, you play?" I said, "Just a little." He said, "You sing?" I said, "Less than I play." The next thing I know he's showing me how to play Janis Ian's Seventeen song and I was singing it for him. I was horrible and a friendship started. The girl from New York who thought she knew everything and the guy from Jersey who claimed to know...

I’ve known Bill & Chuck for as long as I’ve been playing. As a teen I would see the Splif Bros often as I could, and the same for the Puzzlers absorbing everything I heard. It is a huge honor as I now see it; to be part of the “Fingers” and to have had Bill’s magic just a few feet away. Over the years this became status quo, and I got use to Bill’s oozing talent not to mention his kindness that touched so many not thinking for a single moment we would not be making any new memories...

to the dear family and freinds of Bill Van Riper,

last week i learned two great lessons about life...

- if you love someone - tell them...

- and from this loss, find a way to grow...

thanks Bill - i love you and will miss you