In loving memory
Bill Bixler
February 9, 1947 – July 29, 2026
Musician, father, husband, friend. He never met a room he couldn't warm up with a horn in his hands. Leave a memory below — we're keeping every one.
Musician, father, husband, friend. He never met a room he couldn't warm up with a horn in his hands. Leave a memory below — we're keeping every one.
Sunday, October 11, 2026 · 5 PM
Fulton 55
875 E Divisadero St, Fresno, CA 93721
Join us as we celebrate the life, legacy and joyful human spirit of Bill Bixler. Come raise a glass and remember Bix with the people he loved, in real time, at the Fulton 55.
Bill Bixler, "Bix" to almost everyone, spent more than six decades making music and getting other people to make it too.
He started out in the 1960s with a garage band, The Cindermen. In 1974 he helped found Wild Blue Yonder, a jazz-rock fusion band, and he later owned the Wild Blue nightclub in Fresno's Tower District, a room a lot of Fresno musicians still talk about.
In Malibu he taught instrumental music at Malibu High School until he retired in 2014. Some of his students went on to make music for a living, including Taylor Goldsmith and Blake Mills of Dawes, Louis Cole of KNOWER, and Shwayze. Many more just learned to love playing.
He never really stopped. He sang and played sax with Miss Bix & the Blues Fix, hosted "The Bix Mix" jazz show on KBUU radio, and produced Dick Van Dyke's 2017 album Step (Back) in Time.
He died of cancer on July 29, 2026, at 79. He leaves his wife of 37 years, Leslie Letven Bixler; his brother, Jim; his sons Hud, Solon and Robben; his daughter, Chenoah; daughters-in-law Cathy Bixler and Julie Edwards; grandchildren River, Luca, Mira, Zumi and PJ; his niece, Shannon Jones; and a wide circle of friends who will miss him dearly.
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