About William Elliott Whitmore
William Elliott Whitmore is an American blues, country, folk singer and musician. He plays roots-folk music that is often inspired by his life on his family farm in the hills of southeastern Iowa.
Whitmore grew up on a 160-acre horse farm in Lee County, Iowa, not far outside of Keokuk, Iowa. His parents, Elyse Whitmore and Harold Whitmore, were farmers, and the farm had been in his family since his third great-grandfather, who was an immigrant from Ireland. After his parents died, he converted the farm to row crops, which he leases to a neighboring farmer so he can be on the road to perform. He has an older brother and sister.
While he was growing up, the family was musical, with his dad playing the guitar, his mother playing the accordion and piano, and both his paternal and maternal grandfathers playing the banjo. Charley Pride and Willie Nelson were huge influences growing up. Whitmore sang from his earliest years, but when he was a teenager he began playing guitar, then eventually the banjo.
In addition to playing locally with a cousin, Whitmore, after a short stint in San Francisco, moved to Iowa City and got involved in the punk rock and the DIY scene, forming a band called Lost Cause.
In 1996, Whitmore graduated from Central Lee High School in Donnellson, Iowa.
When he was first starting out, Whitmore was a roadie for an Iowa City punk band called Ten Grand, but he eventually started performing as an opener for the band and toured extensively with Ten Grand. This led to him getting signed to the Chicago-based office of Southern Records. Whitmore said he turned to songwriting as a way to deal with the deaths of his parents, who died within a few years of each other, and the deaths of his grandparents.
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