This is a harmless bit of easy listening. I got through it without flinching.
Bill Pursell (1926-2020) grew up in Tulare, California. "Our Winter Love" reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #4 on the Easy Listening chart; it also reached #20 on the R&B singles chart, which is a bit surprising, as there is no rhythm and blues in it as far as I can tell. I guess it just meant that people who normally bought R&B records bought this, and why not?
Pursell continued to release singles through 1965 without further luck. He also appears to have recorded a disco single as "Bill Pursell and the Nashville Sweat Band and Aides" in 1976 called "Bump Me Baby". The first one minute and 21 seconds of this features piano, guitar, and female singers repeatedly singing "do it now". It runs five minutes and 55 seconds in total, and I just couldn't.
When not trying to board the disco bandwagon, Pursell worked as a session musician and arranger, presumably based out of Nashville. He played piano on many of Johnny Cash's albums and also worked with Patsy Cline, Joan Baez, Willie Nelson, J.J. Cale, and Johnny Paycheck, among others. In 1980, he became a faculty member of the School Of Music at Belmont University in Nashville. He lived a long life but sadly was a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Created October 4, 2026.