Bill Monahan has felt the lure of music all his life, with a particular interest in songwriters and their craft. 

As a baby boomer teen he was drawn into the folk wave in the early sixties when songs began to stretch outside the pop confections that had nourished his musical appetite up to that point.  Having always invented songs without ever giving them form he took up the guitar, began to visit coffee houses, and spent his weekends in Toronto’s Yorkville district actively seeking out the newest, most meaningful songwriters of the day.  As a teen he inveigled his way into a private interview with Joni Mitchell at The Riverboat just before she released her first album.

Later as a husband and father of young children he began to take an interest in the music business as it then was and founded Momentum Personal Management to try to promote the talents of songwriters he admired.  After a stint writing for a local music publication and hosting his own open stage he co-founded Amatish Music, an independent label dedicated to songwriters that seemed to be reaching for something beyond entertainment, something closer to literature.  In 1995 he served on the board of The Mariposa Folk Festival and served as Executive producer of the CD related to that year’s festival.