Tim O'Brien made Honorary Member of the BBMA
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On the 15 April, 2002, the current President of the IBMA was made an Honorary Member of the British Bluegrass Music Association He was delighted to have been asked and thinks that the BBMA and the IBMA should work together for the future advancement of the music. Tim is only the third BBMA Honorary Member, joining ex-BBN Editor Robert Clinton and ex-Membership Secretary Stephanie Francis, who received Honoray status in recognition of their services to the Association. [ NWBN article on Tim O'Brien & Darrell Scott gig | Tim's Profile ] Tim commented exclusively to NWBN: "I'm proud to made an honorary member of BBMA. I've been touring in the UK for the last several years, and know many of the bluegrass players there, as well as in Ireland. Things sometimes reveal new things when viewed from afar, and I've found that British bluegrass fans have a slightly different view of the music and the scene. For one thing, a lot of the culture and history that infuse bluegrass are more apparent in the UK. The British are fascinated by the culture of the US in the same way we Americans are by the culture of our mother country. We come from much the same roots, but we've evolved slightly differently. It's familiar but also slightly exotic. So it's always to good to connect the dots - to check up on each other, learn from one another.
One benefit of the British perspective is that there's less emphasis on the current scene. I sometimes think there's a better awareness of the older repertoire. The real strong traditional stuff seems to find more favor there. It's the same with the artists that people pay attention to - since there's not so many bluegrass acts touring, you tend to listen to a wider range of the music through time. On a per fan basis, for instance, the Lilly Brothers might be more known there than in the US. The same can be said of the awareness of older country music styles and artists like the Louvin Brothers. Lastly, there's less of the worry about borders that the Americans fret over. What is and what isn't bluegrass? It's more obvious to the Brits and they don't worry that the other American styles are close cousins, and they don't seem to worry so much about what's acceptable. The bluegrass religion can be a fairly insulated, even stifling, thing in the US, but it seems less so in the UK. Thanks for making me feel at home in your world." Tim O'Brien Tim's Website A singer of unusual clarity and originality, a self-taught multi-instrumentalist of rare ability, and an incisive songwriter, Tim O'Brien has, over the last 20 years, made a lasting mark on what some are calling "Americana" music through his innate musicianship and his wide-ranging tastes. Whether it's the reinterpretation of an old fiddle tune, a revitalised honky-tonk shuffle from the 1950s, or an original, bluegrass-inflected folk song, O'Brien's music feels familiar and comfortable while never lapsing into the predictable. Tim came of age in Wheeling, West Virginia, seeing artists like Charley Pride, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Country Gentlemen and Jimmy Martin perform at radio's famous WWVA Jamboree. When still in his teens, he went West to explore the bluegrass scene in Colorado, where he met guitarist Charles Sawtelle, banjoist Pete Wernick, and bassist-vocalist Nick Forster. That group became Hot Rize which, from 1978 to 1990, earned recognition as one of America's most innovative and entertaining bluegrass bands. To broaden their repertoire, the members of Hot Rize would often split their show with a set of classic and offbeat country and western music in the comic guise of Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. O'Brien's first solo album, 1984's 'Hard Year Blues', reached beyond bluegrass into the folk fusion that would define his solo career. Three subsequent releases comprised of duets with his sister Mollie O'Brien in 1988, 1992, and 1994 showcased a love for antique country material, folk songs, and swing. Following the break-up of Hot Rize, O'Brien assembled the O'Boys, a band to back up his original material. Their initial sets included songs from his first Sugar Hill Records solo album, Odd Man In. They toured intensively and recorded 1993's Oh Boy! O' Boy!, a wide ranging record that included a duet with Del McCoury on Bob Dylan's When I Paint My Masterpiece, which helped inspire Red on Blonde a few years later, in which O'Brien interpreted an album's worth of Dylan material. O'Brien's 1997 release When No One's Around is regarded by some as his finest solo album. In 1999, O'Brien released an ambitious 16-song collection of original and traditional songs that explore his family roots in Ireland as well as the Appalachian/Celtic musical dynamic that underlies so much American traditional music. The album The Crossing features the talents of Altan, Paul Brady, and many of O'Brien's American bluegrass picking friends. A subsequent project, Songs From the Mountain teamed O'Brien up with old-time musicians John Herrmann and Dirk Powell to make perhaps the rootsiest album of O'Brien's career. O'Brien's most recent project Newgrange is a collaboration with West Coast musicians Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, and others. As he has amassed this large discography as a soloist and ensemble player, O'Brien has lent his work to projects by a wide range of artists, including Laurie Lewis, Maura O'Connell, Kathy Kallick, Jerry Douglas, Peter Ostroushko, Dwight Yoakam, Pat Alger, Robert Earl Keen., Kate Rusby and David Grier. Any of these artists would tell you of their immense respect for O'Brien's ability to convey something distinctive and personal in each of his performances. His style has evolved in the fashion of so many traditionalists before him, through listening to a wide range of players, adopting and adapting what fit his technique and personality and fusing them.
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Tim O'Brien at the Strictly Bluegrass Concerts,
San Francisco, October 2002