As a music promoter and nightclub owner in Greensboro NC, Griffin had the gift of turning empty buildings and vacant storefronts into hot spots and gold mines. The dozens of clubs he owned over a 30-year span in and around Greensboro are still spoken of in respectful tones. These include: the Castaways, the Boondocks and the Bushes. At some point he in his career booked almost every marquee act on the soul, R&B and beach music circuit and was still on personal terms with most of them, particularly Bill Pinkney of the Drifters and General Johnson of the Chairmen of the Board.

On Sunday nights in the 1960’s, Castaways of Greensboro NC, would regularly have some of the most famous rock and roll and rhythm and blues bands in the nation to perform for crowds of 2,000 or more.

Many bands such as Part-Time Party-Time Band, The Embers, Doug Clark and John Clark of the Hot Nuts band and Bill Pinkney, are quick to agree that they wouldn’t be legends today, or perhaps not even in the music business, were it not for Bill Griffin.

During the 1970’s, R&B and beach music started growing scarce due to the new craze of disco. Griffin however, persistently refused to go disco, and R&B bands up and down the U.S. east coast came to Greensboro for survival. He hired these bands when no one else would. A legend in his time, Griffin was also inducted into the Beach Music Hall of Fame in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Bill Griffin was born in 1932 and died August 9, 1999 of inoperable lung cancer.