Bill Black(V)

Bill Black (real name William Thomas Blackwell III) was born in Long Beach, California. August 18 1960. He started out in music on bass guitar in the Los Angeles clubs with a rockabilly trio, James Intveld and the Rockin' Shadows. Black left and was replaced by Patrick Woodward. The band split up when Ricky Nelson asked drummer Ricky Intveld and Woodward to join his backing band. All were killed on 31 December 1985 when the plane in which they were travelling crashed in De Kalb, Texas less than two miles from a landing strip at approximately 5.14pm. In 1983 Black joined the Huntington Beach pop punk rock group "The Earwigs" and stayed with them until they split up in 1987.

In the late 1980s, Black was contracted by Activision to create audio and MIDI tracks for their games. In 1995 he began sound design & casting & directing character voice over for video games under the name Big Fat Kitty Productions (later Bill Black Audio Video). He worked with Geoff Farr to design sound for Gina & TL, a 2002 Sundance Film Festival pick for animated shorts. The same year, Black and composer Paul Chiten created the sound that opens and closes the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Black is now the CFO of Buzzart Enterprises Inc., the publishing company of Buzzy Linhart. Black lectures regularly at USC Viterbi School of Engineering and is also voiceover casting and dialogue director.