Bill Nelson

All Music Guide:

Bill Nelson is both an enigma and a highly public person whose motivations sometimes seem shrouded in complex mysteries, yet whose at-times prodigious output amounts to public development of song ideas and musical experiments. He has been both a guitar hero and the background figure in any number of art installations, exhibitions, and theatrical presentations. While difficult for record company executives to grasp and often obscure to the general public, Nelson has nonetheless built up a strong and loyal fan base around the world.

Nelson was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the semi-industrial town of Wakefield, showing a talent for art and design and a passion for science fiction. His father, saxophonist Walter Nelson, was the leader of a dance band, and his mother, Jean, had once performed as part of a dance troupe, so music permeated the household -- Nelson's brother, Ian, is also a saxophonist, while several close relatives were expert musicians. Even so, Nelson never learned to read music, and was relatively late coming to guitar -- he was well into his teens before his father bought him the Gibson ES345 that eventually became his trademark. His early influences included Duane Eddy, as well as the icon of every budding English guitarist of the early '60s, Hank Marvin of the Shadows ("The Passion," included on The Two-Fold Aspect of Everything, is a veritable chronicle of Marvin's influence). Later influences included Jimi Hendrix, for whom Nelson wrote "Crying to the Sky," a Be Bop Deluxe song.

He went through a relatively normal process of education at Wakefield schools, eventually attending the Wakefield College of Art, where he was able to pursue his painting and graphics interests, as well as his fascination with Jean Cocteau. On the musical side of his life, he was involved with several unrecorded bands. The first known Nelson recordings are of a three-piece band called Global Village, who cut three covers for an EP and dissolved in 1968. Nelson also played on sessions at the Holyground recording studio, various tracks of which have surfaced again in recent years, though Nelson is dismissive of his participation. Around this time he married for the first time, becoming a Pentecostal Christian and joining a church group called the Messengers, who later changed their name to Gentle Revolution. The marriage resulted in the 1970 birth of Julia Nelson.

Nelson's career began in earnest with the recording and release of a solo album, Northern Dream, which was financed by the owner of the Record Bar, a local Wakefield record store. The initial pressing was limited to 250 copies (it has since been reissued several times, much to Nelson's frustration; he has never received royalties from the record), one of which found its way to BBC disc jockey John Peel, whose late-night Radio One shows were a constant influence on British rock music. Peel took an immediate liking to the record, playing cuts from it on a regular basis, with the result that executives from EMI's Harvest label contacted Nelson with the intention of having him record for the label, possibly with a remake of Northern Dream.

Nelson had different ideas by this point, however, and had assembled the first version of Be Bop Deluxe, featuring fellow Gentle Revolution member Richard Brown (keyboards), Ian Parkin (guitar), Rob Bryan (bass), and Nicholas Chatterton-Dew (drums). Brown left before the band went into the studio. A single, "Teenage Archangel"/"Jets at Dawn," was recorded and sold at concerts just before the EMI deal was finalized. Nelson broke the band up after the recording of 1974's Axe Victim, after EMI expressed dissatisfaction with the abilities of the other members. Nelson briefly worked with Paul Jeffreys and Milton Reame-James, formerly of Cockney Rebel, and bringing drummer Simon Fox into the band. Bassist Charles Tumahai was the next addition, with the trio going on to record Futurama. Keyboardist Andy Clark was the final addition to the band, which remained together until the recording of Drastic Plastic in 1978, by which time the mantle of guitar hero was beginning to weigh heavily on Nelson, who was intent on expanding his horizons. The band had quickly developed a reputation for quirky songs and musical pyrotechnics, facets demonstrated both in the studio and in a live context -- Live! In the Air Age remains a brilliant document of a great live band. During this period Nelson divorced his first wife, Shirley, and married his second, Jan, for whom he wrote a great deal of music; he also used her as a model for much of his art.

Red Noise was the next phase of Nelson's plan for life, originally intended to begin with Drastic Plastic -- never the same thing twice, in either musicians or styles. Sound on Sound was a fluid, expert document that demonstrated Nelson's ability to experiment, though at the cost of jarring both the audience and the record company -- EMI, looking for moneymakers and easy understanding, dropped Nelson. A second Red Noise album had been finished, but was never released in its original form.

Abandoning the Red Noise experiment, Nelson reworked the album and released Quit Dreaming and Get on the Beam via Mercury Records. In its original format, the album came with a bonus disc, a full-length album of ambient sketches recorded in his home studio, released as Sounding the Ritual Echo (the album has subsequently been issued by itself). Quit Dreaming and Get on the Beam went into the Top Ten in the U.K. This was repeated with The Love That Whirls (Diary of a Thinking Heart), which also included a bonus album (this time La Belle et La Bete, a theater soundtrack recording) and the single "Flaming Desire." This period proved to be the commercial peak of Nelson's career, unfortunately; Chimera, an EP, failed to generate much interest (it was released with additional cuts in the U.S., under the title of Vistamix) and a subsequent deal with CBS/Epic led only to strained relations and a confused release; the U.K. Getting the Holy Ghost Across was altered, resequenced, and released in the U.S. as On a Blue Wing. For Nelson, the main advantage of the deal was that he was able to completely rebuild his home studio, providing him with the facility to experiment more and more, resulting in the release of the first Orchestra Arcana album, which combined synthesized soundscapes with soundbytes and tape loops. The name originated as a result of a clause in Nelson's CBS contract that forbade him to release his experimental material under his own name.

Nelson started Cocteau Records in 1981, partnering with his then-manager, Mark Rye. The original intention, soon lost, had been for the label to release Nelson's instrumental and experimental work, as well as a variety of interesting artists. Of the people Nelson worked with, only A Flock of Seagulls amounted to much more than a footnote. In the end, the focus remained squarely on the release of Nelson's material across the board -- a sometimes bewildering array of titles, including the four-LP box set Trial by Intimacy (The Book of Splendours). Nelson also worked with many others, including Gary Numan, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Harold Budd.

Following the expiration of the CBS deal, Nelson signed to Enigma Records in the U.S., resulting in the American release of just about everything in his catalog bar Northern Dream and the CBS titles, with new titles including the two-LP-plus-one-7"-EP set Chance Encounters in the Garden of Lights, and a highly entertaining outing under the Orchestra Arcana name, Optimism. Enigma, however, was in the process of sinking from sight, with the result that most of the titles received poor distribution and one, Simplex, never received an official release (at one point, Nelson's ex-manager was selling copies by mail order). Between 1988 and 1991, Nelson's life fell apart spectacularly -- he was hit with tax bills, a separation and, eventually, a divorce, the collapse of Enigma, and a protracted battle with his ex-manager over the rights to his back catalog.

While the various wrangles somewhat derailed Nelson personally, nothing seemed to slow him down when it came to productivity; in fact, it appears that stress improves his output. The separation from his second wife resulted in the four-disc Demonstrations of Affection, as well as a backlog of recorded material that is still being released piecemeal on such sets as My Secret Studio and Confessions of a Hyperdreamer. Nelson had continued refining his writing and recording process, coming to the point that entire songs could be composed and recorded in a two-hour session, a speed of production that rivals that of Steve Allen. In the course of wooing of his third wife, Emiko, Nelson wrote and produced between 100 and 150 new songs in the space of a year, sending them to her on cassette.

Working as hard as ever into the '90s, Nelson continued to produce and collaborate with other artists, facilitated by new management. His solo output became somewhat sporadic, with Luminous appearing in 1991 and several other albums, each on different labels, appearing in the years afterwards, though he has recently returned to normal with the limited-edition releases of My Secret Studio and Confessions of a Hyperdreamer, totaling six full CDs of songs, instrumentals, and sonic experiments. Practically Wired...Or How I Became Guitarboy is his first guitar instrumental album, while After the Satellite Sings both experiments with the new territory of drum'n'bass and reflects the kind of styles Nelson had eschewed as being too evocative of Be Bop Deluxe and his guitar hero days.

He has worked on film, television, and video scores, directed a variety of videos, toured as part of Heroes de Lumiere with his brother Ian, worked with Roger Eno, Laraaji, and Kate St. John under the Channel Light Vessel name, formed a new Be Bop Deluxe (only to dissolve again when financial backing evaporated), performed as part of the Japanese group Culturemix, married for the third time, to Emiko Takahashi, became a big name in Japan, and recovered the majority of his work from former manager Mark Rye.

Nelson created a new label, Populuxe, which has set up distribution arrangements with Robert Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile (DGM) operation. A planned reissue program should see the majority of Nelson's solo material available worldwide in revised editions, with new material interspersed with the reissues. Phenomenally busy, driven by his muse, and an active magician, Nelson continues to delight and confound, issuing Atom Shop in 1998.

Wikipedia:

Clarence William "Bill" Nelson (born September 29, 1942) is the senior United States Senator from the state of Florida and a member of the Democratic Party. He is a former United States Representative and former Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner of Florida. In 1986, he became the second sitting member of the United States Congress to fly in space.

In 1972, Nelson was elected to the Florida House of Representatives. He was re-elected in 1974 and 1976. Nelson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978. He served in the U.S. House from 1979 to 1991. In January 1986, he flew as a Payload Specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia. After a failed gubernatorial race in 1990, he successfully ran for the office of Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner of Florida in 1994 and served for six years. In 2000, Nelson ran for U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Senator Connie Mack. In the Senate he is generally considered a social moderate and economic liberal. He was re-elected in 2006 with 60 percent of the vote and is seeking re-election in 2012.

Personal life

Nelson was born in Miami, the only child of Nannie Merle (née Nelson) and Clarence William Nelson. He spent his youth in Melbourne, Florida, where he attended Melbourne High School.

Nelson attended the University of Florida before transferring to Yale University. He subsequently received a law degree from the University of Virginia. In 1965, he joined the U.S. Army Reserve; he served on active duty from 1968 to 1970, attaining the rank of captain, and he remained in the Army until 1971. Nelson was admitted to the Florida bar in 1968, and began practicing law in Melbourne in 1970. In 1971, he worked as legislative assistant to Governor Reubin Askew.

In 1972, Nelson married Grace Cavert. The couple has two adult children: Bill Nelson, Jr., and Nan Ellen Nelson.

He was baptized as a Baptist, and grew up attending Baptist and Episcopal churches. In 2005, he joined the First Presbyterian Church in Orlando.

Spaceflight

In 1986, Nelson became the second sitting member of Congress (and the first member of the House) to travel into space. He went through NASA training with Senator Jake Garn of Utah. He was a Payload Specialist on Space Shuttle Columbia's STS-61-C mission from January 12 to 18, 1986.

The primary objective of the mission was to deploy the Ku-1 communications satellite, second in a planned series of geosynchronous satellites owned and operated by RCA Americom. The deployment was successful. The flight also carried a large number of small experiments, including 13 GAS canisters devoted to investigations involving the effect of microgravity on materials processing, seed germination, chemical reactions, egg hatching, astronomy and atmospheric physics.

Columbia landed at Edwards AFB at 5:59 a.m. PST, on January 18. Mission elapsed time was 6 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes, 51 seconds. It was the last successful Space Shuttle flight before the Challenger accident, as the disaster occurred only 10 days after Columbia's return.

Political career

Florida legislature

In 1972, Nelson was elected to the Florida House of Representatives. He won re-election in 1974 and 1976.

U.S. House of Representatives

Nelson was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1978. He served in the U.S. House from 1979 to 1991.

Gubernatorial campaign

In 1990, Nelson ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Florida. He lost to former U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles, who went on to win the general election. During the primary campaign, Nelson tried to make an issue out of Chiles' health and age, a strategy that backfired on him in a state with a large population of retirees and senior citizens.

Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner

In 1994 Nelson announced his intention to seek the office of Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner of Florida. He won the election with 52% of the vote over State Rep. Tim Ireland's 48%. In 1998, he again defeated Ireland for his reelection to the office.

In 2000, Nelson resigned his post as Commissioner following his election to the U.S. Senate.

U.S. Senate

In 2000, Nelson ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Senator Connie Mack. He won the election, defeating U.S. Representative Bill McCollum, who ran as the Republican candidate.

Political Positions

Nelson's votes have tended to be more liberal than conservative. He has received high ratings from left-of-center groups such as Americans for Democratic Action, and low ones from right-of-center groups such as the Eagle Forum and the Club for Growth. According to ratings by the National Journal, Nelson's votes have been liberal on economic matters, moderate on social issues, and liberal but close to the center on foreign policy.

Nelson has called for greater bipartisanship and civility between left and right. “The finger pointing and hyper-partisanship has to stop,” he has said. “Democrats need to see tea partiers as something other than debt-limit hostage-taking Republicans. And Republicans need to see President Barack Obama and Democrats as something other than big-spending socialists....We’ve got to stop this attack madness. We have to bring civility back to the public square.... It’s time to stop the shouting and bickering and political attacks. It’s time to show the world that America can take care of business.” In November 2011 he told a conference: “People are so rigid, they are in their ideological boxes, they won't move and it is my way or the highway. The people of our country are fed up with this nonsense. I tell you I am fed up with it. It is frustrating.”

Nelson has been especially vocal on the issue of minority voting rights and on funding for space exploration. A strong supporter of NASA, he flew on the space shuttle Columbia in 1986.

The Progressive Patriots website gave Nelson a “progressive” score of 25/100.

Central America Free Trade Agreement

In 2005, Nelson was one of ten Democrats who voted in favor of the Dominican Republic – Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on its 55-45 passage in the Senate; Nelson's vote was cast despite opposition by special interests like the sugar lobby.

Estate tax

On several occasions, Nelson has voted against his party to reduce or eliminate the estate tax, notably in June 2006, when he was one of four Democrats voting for a failed (57-41) cloture motion on a bill to eliminate the tax.

Withholding funding from the CIA

In 2007, Nelson was the lone Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee to vote against an amendment to withhold funds for CIA use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects. His vote, combined with those of all Republican members of the committee, killed the measure.

Healthcare

In March 2010, Nelson voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which passed and were signed into law by President Obama. A Mason-Dixon Florida poll indicated that the measure was opposed by a majority of those surveyed, and by nearly two-thirds of Florida voters aged 65 or older. The same poll showed Nelson's negative rating rising to 34%, from 16% at the time of his 2006 re-election. However, a Gallup poll indicated that 79% of Democrats approved of the legislation, with only 40% of all adults opposing the legislation.

Space exploration

Nelson is seen as a major supporter of the space program. In 2010 he proposed creating as many as “five business enterprise zones as magnets for commercial space ventures.” “The move is expected to attract thousands of jobs to Florida’s 'Space Coast' area around NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base.”

In March 2010 Nelson complained that Obama had made a mistake in canceling NASA's Constellation program. On July 7, 2011, Tom Parkinson reported that Nelson had said that Congress “starved” the space program of funding for several years, but suggested that the situation was turning around and called on the Obama Administration to push for NASA funding.

Don't Ask Don't Tell

On December 18, 2010, Nelson voted in favor of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.

Congressional Term Limits

Nelson does not support Congressional Term Limits, and agrees with constitutional scholars who argue that term limits would limit the prerogative of the voters."

Debt ceiling

Nelson has a mixed record on budgetary and business issues. In July 2011, Marc Caputo and Erika Bolstad of the Miami Herald noted that “Bill Nelson was against raising the debt ceiling before he was for it. And he was for it before he was against it.”

2006 re-election campaign

Following the 2004 election, in which Republican George W. Bush was re-elected and the Republican party increased its majority in both the House and the Senate, Nelson was seen as vulnerable. He was a Democrat in a state that Bush had won, though by a margin of only five percentage points.

Evangelical Christian activist James Dobson declared that such Democrats, including Nelson, would be "in the 'bull's-eye'" if they supported efforts to block Bush's judicial nominees; and Nelson's refusal to support efforts in Congress to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case was seen as "a great political issue" for a Republican opponent to use in mobilizing Christian conservatives against him. Florida governor Jeb Bush, precluded by term limits from seeking re-election in 2006, was suggested as an opponent who might secure Nelson's seat for the Republicans. Bush chose not to run for the seat. Katherine Harris, the former Florida Secretary of State and two-term U.S. representative, defeated three other candidates in the September 5 Republican primary. Nelson was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.

Harris's role in the 2000 presidential election made her a polarizing figure. Many Florida Republicans were eager to reward her for her perceived party loyalty in the Bush-Gore election; many Florida Democrats were eager to vote against her for the same reason. Harris's campaign was beset by difficulties: poor fundraising, a series of gaffes, and a high turnover of staff, including the loss of three campaign managers and of chief advisor Ed Rollins. In February, it was learned that Harris had received $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions from defense contractor Mitchell J. Wade.

In April, a National Review editorial urged Harris to withdraw, arguing that she would unquestionably win the primary and lose the general election. In May, when the party found itself unable to recruit a candidate who could defeat Harris in the primary, many Republican activists admitted that the race was already lost.

Harris's campaign focused heavily on evangelical Christianity. In an August interview with Florida Baptist Witness, she declared: "[I]f you're not electing Christians then in essence you are going to legislate sin" Nelson, meanwhile, focused on safe issues, portraying himself as a bipartisan centrist problem-solver. He obtained the endorsement of all 22 of Florida's daily newspapers. Harris failed to secure the endorsement of Jeb Bush, who publicly stated that she could not win; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which had supported her in her congressional campaigns, did not endorse her in this race.

As the election approached, polls showed Harris trailing Nelson by 26 to 35 points. Nelson transferred about $16.5 million in campaign funds to other Democratic candidates, and won the election with 60.4% of the vote to Harris's 38.2%.

2012 re-election campaign

In late May 2010 on the Talking Points blog, Brian Beutler reported that Nelson had “called on Obama...to shake up the arrangement of the cleanup and rescue operation by putting the military in charge.” In early June, CBS News reported that Nelson was “becoming increasingly frustrated with the chaos surrounding the cleanup.”

Biden has called Nelson crucial to President Obama's chances for winning Florida in 2012. Several possible 2012 challengers have emerged, but the only one who is widely seen as a real threat is Connie Mack IV (the son of Nelson's direct predecessor in the Senate). In March 2011, Vice President Joe Biden was reported as having said that if Nelson lost in 2012, “it means President Obama and the Democratic presidential ticket won't win the key battleground state, either....'He's a truly, truly decent guy who has the absolute respect of his colleagues, and I've heard that from both sides of the aisle,' Biden said of his former Senate colleague.”

Controversies

On February 17, 2009, David D. Kirkpatrick wrote that Nelson was one of three lawmakers who “were returning campaign contributions from donors listed as employees of the PMA Group, a Washington lobbying firm whose founder is under investigation for purportedly funneling money through bogus donors.”

During his 2006 Senate campaign, according to the Open Congress website, Nelson “was accused of taking $80,000 in illegal campaign contributions from Riscorp, Inc....The Riscorp scandal involved dozens of Florida state legislators and was among the largest scandals in recent Florida history.”

In November 2011, Ahmed Bedier, an activist linked to CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, donated money to Nelson and co-hosted a fundraiser for him. Nelson's representatives later claimed that he “did not know about Bedier's relationship with CAIR” and that Bedier had exaggerated his closeness to the Senator. In November 2011 Marc Caputo of the Miami Herald wrote that the scandal over Bedier threatened the Jewish vote for Nelson, given that Bedier had called Israel a “terrorist state.” Caputo noted that while “Nelson has gone to great lengths to fashion himself as pro-Israel,” that wasn't enough for some conservative groups.

Committee assignments

Senator Nelson serves on the following committees in the 112th Congress.

Electoral history