Bill Kirchen is one of the fortunate few who can step on any stage, play those trademark guitar licks which he created for the seminal Commander Cody classic, “Hot Rod Lincoln,” and elicit immediate recognition.

As a founding father of the proto-Americana group Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, Kirchen wrought a diesel-fueled guitar hook that drove their Hot Rod Lincoln into the Top 10 nationwide. Kirchen went on to the Grammys where he was nominated for Best Country Instrumental in 2001.

He has recorded with Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Dan Hicks, Maria Muldaur, Hoyt Axton, Hazel Dickens, Gene Vincent and Link Wray, and  has toured the world as guitarist with Cody, Nick Lowe, Hoyt Axton and Emmylou Harris.

Bill Kirchen was inducted into the Hall Of Fame of the Washington DC Wammie Music Awards in 2001, alongside Dave Grohl and John Phillip Sousa. He joined a remarkable list of prior inductees including Bo Diddly, Duke Ellington, Ruth Brown, Marvin Gaye, Patsy Cline, Shirley Horn, Emmylou Harris, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady.

His recent disc, Transatlanticana, entered the Americana Radio Chart Top 10 in 2018, joining his extensive catalogue of over 2 dozen albums, from the Commander Cody discs on through his current 12 releases on the Proper and Last Music Company labels. Bill’s latest releases are Back from the Ozone, a Lost Planet Airmen reunion CD out in October 2023 and, from 2021,  the LPs Waxworks and Tombstone Every Mile, along with The Proper Years and Tombstone on CD and in all digital formats, all on the Last Music Company label.

Washington Post:  “Seldom has traveling across the rock and country landscape been this much fun”

Guitar Player magazine: “The Titan of the Telecaster…cuts loose with some of the fattest, gnarliest low-down twang imaginable”