During the 1980s, Evans led Cloud Valley, a progressive bluegrass outfit in Charlottesville, VA. For a period of about four years beginning in 1993, the banjoist performed with Dry Branch Fire Squad. He also contributed to the band's Live! At Last album, issued by Rounder Records in 1996. In 1995, Rounder put out Evans' Native Fine. The NAIRD (National Association of Independent Record Retailers and Distributors) bestowed an honorable mention on the album in 1996 in the category of Acoustic Instrumental Recording of the Year. Native and Fine Records put out his next solo album, Bill Evans Plays Banjo. Several critics placed the album on their lists of the best bluegrass releases of 2001. Evans also has a hand in producing. He acted as co-producer and played on Suzanne Thomas' Dear Friends Gentle Hearts, an album issued by Rounder in 1998. He and Thomas, who also was part of Dry Branch Fire Squad, perform and record together in the traditional bluegrass band Bluegrass Intentions, along with Alan Senauke.
Evans also performs frequently with Peter Rowan, as well as with Tony Trischka as a duo, and in the band Due West. The banjoist also has performed with such artists as Jim Hurst & Missy Raines, the Kathy Kallick Band, Don Rigsby Friends, Robin Linda Williams Their Fine Group, Charlie Moore the Falls City Ramblers, the Gary Ferguson Band, and the Lynn Morris Band. His activities have included co-hosting #The Banjo of Sonny Osborne, a video from Homespun Tapes, and authoring a book on the same artist, -Sonny Osborne: the Bluegrass Collection, which was published by AcuTab Publications in 2001. AcuTab also published -The Banjo of J.D. Crowe, which Evans co-edited. He has taught music history at several universities, including the University of Virginia and the University of San Francisco. Evans is working on his PhD in the field of ethnomusicology at the University of California at Berkeley. ~ Linda Seida, Rovi