Miscellaneous
A "Biography" of Bill Mallonee
by Andy Whitman, January 24, 1997
Lead singer/songwriter Bill Mallonee is the oldest living survivor of the American Civil War. Now 151 years old, Mallonee has lead a colorful life following his rescue from Andersonville Prison in 1865. After the war he and his wife Hannah and his other wife Brenda headed west where, as Lady Luck would have it, he founded the town of Las Vegas, Nevada in 1868. Tiring of unending roulette games and a steady diet of bad floor shows, Mallonee embarked on a passenger liner to Europe in 1875. After taking on water after a violent storm, the ship sunk off the southern coast of France. Fortunately, Mallonee was able to avoid the treacherous undertow and swim ashore, where, after drying off, he made the acquaintance of one Vincent Van Gogh, a struggling artist. Under Mallonee's tutelage Van Gogh's career then flourished, until one starry, starry night in 1898 he again grew restless and decided to venture to Cuba, this time as a rough-rider in the company of Teddy Roosevelt. After winning the purple heart, the pink moon, the green clover, and the yellow star in the Spanish-American war, Mallonee returned home as a conquering hero, intent on promoting his political future, and secure in the knowledge that he would be able rely on his contacts with the Roosevelt family. Sadly, however, he languished in virtual obscurity for more than thirty years until he was eventually taken on as an administrative assistant to Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he was to maintain a lifelong friendship. Again, however, just at the point when it seemed that his fortunes had turned, Mallonee was badly injured in a train wreck that killed his wife Hannah. Suffering from bouts of depression, and fearing that he'd gone off the deep end, Mallonee was committed to the Victims of Lobotomies (VOL) Mental Institution outside Brainerd, Minnesota, where he subsisted on magazines and thorazine for several years. After a daring midnight escape, Mallonee worked from the early to the late fifties as a carpenter, where he established a cult following for his ability to drive nails harder and faster than anyone who had ever wielded a hammer. Following a brief stint as the drummer for legendary bluesman Elmore James, and an even briefer stint as a tightrope walker (where he was known as William Wallenda), Mallonee settled down to a life of blowing up abortion clinics. Finally caught in 1984, he was scheduled to be executed in the electric chair, but was granted a last-minute reprieve following a tearful appeal from his friend Jimmy Swaggart. Deciding at long last that it was time to slow down and tell his life story, Mallonee then founded a rock 'n roll accordion band in 1989, and has since recorded seven albums of highly autobiographical material. He still moves pretty well for such an old guy.
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