My wife just handed me an Associated Press article of Sunday, June 8,
1997, "Player piano mechanic a rare bird", and coincidentally in my mail
yesterday was the same article sent to me by a music fan: a photocopy of
the original article published in The Arizona Republic, Phoenix AZ,
Monday, May 26, 1997, entitled "Player-piano mechanic strikes nostalgic
chord," written by reporter Carol Sowers.

The subject of the articles is Bill Elliott, 64, of Scottsdale, Arizona,
who has been rebuilding player pianos for several decades.  However, the
story hints that there's more; author Sowers writes in the Republic:

  "Five years after joining the piano roll company, Elliott's improved
  system for making the [piano] rolls had caught the attention of a
  player-piano company in Oregon, Illinois.  The company bought his
  method, and in 1963 Elliott moved to Phoenix to return to engineering."

Is this man, Bill Elliott, the son of Vern Elliott, the master roll-
arranger at Filmusic Co. of Los Angeles in the 1920s?  Is the perforator
he apparently designed the same perforator used by Aeolian in the 1960s,
and which is now at Keystone Music Rolls in Pennsylvania?  Wasn't this
built at Pacific Piano Supply in Los Angeles?

Does anyone know more about Bill Elliott and his perforator?

Robbie Rhodes