Out in western Nebraska, there's a couple of windswept little towns on the Platte River where some people try to eke out a living from the dry soil. Even along the river, miles separate individual households, and north, in the sandhills, the solitude is as profound as any on the continent. Antelope still roam out there. Flocks of migrating Canadian geese rest in the river shallows in November, crossing this ribbon of water on the fly ways towards the Gulf of Mexico.

William Eaton's parents met and fell in love in this country and the taste and touch of this fading world lives on in their children. It's a pure Americanism, direct and honest, spacious and easy going, informed by daily contact with the wide open infinities of time and space and the windy relentless prairie.
While Eaton grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, he has always returned for holidays and family gatherings to the original home in Lisco, on the river, where his grandmother still lives. When he was seven his Uncle Charlie gave him a ukulele and showed him the chords for "Has Anybody Seen My Gal?".

His first performance was before an audience of 800 at Irving Junior High School in Lincoln, playing banjo and guitar with The Balladeers, a folk trio including his older brother. In high school, as lead guitarist for Candy Machine, Eaton spent most Saturday nights in farm towns hundreds of miles from home playing the top 40 music of the 1960's to local teens starved for links with the outside world.