Bill Staines (born February 6, 1947 in Medford, Massachusetts) is an American folk musician and singer-songwriter from New Hampshire who writes and performs songs with a wide array of subjects. He has also written and recorded children's songs.
Raised in Lexington, Massachusetts, Staines began his professional career in the early 1960s in the Cambridge area. He began touring nationwide a few years later. In 1975 he won the National Yodeling Championship at the Kerrville Folk Festival. He performs about 200 times a year and has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage, and The Good Evening Show.
Staines's songs include "Bridges", "Crossing the Water", "Sweet Wyoming Home", "The Roseville Fair", "A Place in the Choir", "Child of Mine", and "River". They have been recorded by many other artists, including Peter, Paul and Mary, Makem and Clancy, Nanci Griffith, Mason Williams, The Highwaymen, Glenn Yarbrough, Skip Jones, Jerry Jeff Walker, Schooner Fare, Grandpa Jones, The Grace Family, Hank Cramer, Coty Hogue and Priscilla Herdman. He has recorded 22 albums, 15 of which were still in print as of 2005. Staines's songs have been published in four songbooks, If I Were a Word, Then I'd Be a Song; River; Music to Me: The Songs of Bill Staines, and All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir.
Staines is left-handed and plays a right-handed guitar upside-down, with the bass strings on the bottom. Consequently, he has developed his own fingerings and picking style.
His memoir, The Tour: A Life Between the Lines, was published in 2004.
Staines lives in Rollinsford, New Hampshire with his wife, Karen; his son, Bowen; and his springer spaniel, Andy, who appeared on the cover of his album Old Dogs. Bowen is also a folk singer.