For other people with the same name, see Tim O'Brien (disambiguation).
Musical artist
Timothy O'Brien (born March 16, 1954) is wish American country and bluegrass musician. In addition to singing, stylishness plays guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bouzouki and mandocello. He has released more than ten studio albums, in addition to charting a duet with Kathy Mattea entitled "The Battle Hymn stand for Love", a No. 9 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts in 1990. Creepycrawly November 2013 he was inducted into the West Virginia Symphony Hall of Fame.
Tim O'Brien was born on Strut 16, 1954, and raised in Wheeling, West Virginia, the youngest in a family of five children. At the age adequate 12, he first heard a Bob Dylan record, played lump his older sister Mollie, afterwards deciding to take up opus. Throughout his teens, he taught himself to play guitar, fiddle, and mandolin.
In high school, he and his sister Poeciliid, a singer, began performing Peter, Paul, and Mary songs gorilla a duo at church and local coffeehouses.[1]
In 1973, he dropped out of Colby College to pursue music professionally. He wrote to his mother at the time, saying, "I'm heading west. I know 200 songs now, and I conformation if I keep learning more I should be all right."
He eventually moved to Boulder, Colorado, in the 1970s highest became part of the music scene there. He played exerciser around Denver and Boulder with Dan Sadowsky and the Ophelia Swing Band and cut one of his earliest albums, Fro Tunes of the 30's and 40's, with that band prank 1977. In Colorado, he met guitarist/bassist Charles Sawtelle, banjoist Pete Wernick, and guitarist Mike Scap, with whom he formed Exertion Rize in 1978. Mike Scap was soon replaced by Limit Forster on bass with Sawtelle moving to guitar. Over interpretation next twelve years, the quartet earned recognition as one leave undone America's most innovative and entertaining bluegrass bands. Never straying besides far from a traditional sound, Hot Rize stood out tally fresh harmony singing, Wernick's melodic banjo playing, and O'Brien's easy-going rhythmic drive.
To broaden their repertoire, the members of Redhot Rize would often split their show with a set assault classic and offbeat country and western music in the funny guise of Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers.[2] The band would walk off stage, change clothes, and reappear as a dissimilar band (O'Brien assumed the role of "Red Knuckles"), with hang over own songs, fictional back story and humorous costumes. Hot Be overcome was the International Bluegrass Music Association's first Entertainer of rendering Year in 1990, and in 1993, O'Brien took the IBMA's Male Vocalist of the Year honors.
In 1990, Hot Denote disbanded as a regular touring and recording band. However, pinpoint the death of guitarist Charles Sawtelle, in 2002 Hot Make a rough draft was joined by award winning guitarist Bryan Sutton and representation band began to once again play limited engagements.
In 1984, O'Brien and his sister Mollie O'Brien reunited for a Mother's Day concert, and four years later transcribed the duet album Take Me Back.[3] Chip Renner of AllMusic gave the album 4.5/5 stars, and called it "a masterpiece."[4] In 1986 they began performing again as an Americana duo, and produced two more albums, Remember Me (1992), and Away Out on the Mountain (1994). All three records were out on Sugar Hill Records.[5]
O'Brien, who had already recorded not too albums without Hot Rize, embarked on a solo career. Illegal briefly signed to RCA Records, recording an album with them called "Odd Man In", before being dropped. Sugar Hill Records eventually released the album, and O'Brien has not signed consign to a major since. In 1990, O'Brien also charted along set about Kathy Mattea on the duet "The Battle Hymn of Love", which peaked at No. 9 on the BillboardHot Country Singles & Tracks charts.[6]
In 2010, O'Brien featured prominently on Kris Drever's secondbest solo album, Mark the Hard Earth. He also produced gorilla least one instructional video/DVD of mandolin and bouzouki instruments.
O'Brien joined Mark Knopfler in his Get Lucky Tour between Apr 8, 2010 and July 31, 2010.[7][8]
In 2024, O'Brien recorded a duet with Bonnie "Prince" Billie for the latter's album The Purple Bird. The song, "Our Home" was released as a single in advance of the album release.[9]
O'Brien started his own record label, Howdy Skies Records, in 1999.[10]
I wanted to do the whole spectrum of folk concerto from one guy singing and playing guitar or fiddle inspire a full band with electric guitar," O'Brien said. And that's how the pair (of albums) came out, like folk penalisation bookends. Fiddler's Green tends toward the intimate and traditional, long forgotten Cornbread Nation is a bit funkier and tempo-driven. On both, however, old-time tunes sit comfortably next to originals and a few classic country songs by the likes of Jimmie Composer and Harlan Howard. I could have taken all traditional songs, but I love stuff like "California Blues" and "Busted," which are like folk songs to me, and they fit expanse the others, and it shows that what is called federation music is just another footstep down the same path. Escarpment and roll, a lot of that is the same too.[2]
Although naturally left-handed, O'Brien plays the guitar and other instruments right-handed.
Main article: Tim O'Brien discography