Tim O'Brien

by Craig Harris
Tim OBrien is one of the spearheads of contemporary bluegrass. As co- founder and lead vocalist of Hot Rize and Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers, OBrien served as a bridge between the traditional sounds of the hill country and the modern styles of bluegrass in the 1980s. Since the bands breakup, OBrien has continued to expand the musics borders as a soloist, a duo partner with his sister Mollie, and with his band, the OBoys. OBriens songs have additionally been recorded by Kathy Mattea, the Seldom Scene, New Grass Revival, and the Johnson Mountain Boys.

OBriens earliest memories of music are the Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller records favored by his parents and the Lawrence Welk recordings played by a Polish housekeeper. A turning point came when OBrien began listening to a weekly country music radio show, The Saturday Night Jamboree. Discovering that the show was broadcast from a local theater, OBrien became a frequent audience member and saw performances by Jerry Lee Lewis, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Roger Miller.

Acquiring his first guitar at the age of 12, OBrien took to the instrument almost immediately. Although he played with numerous high-school rock bands, OBrien was steered toward country music and bluegrass by Roger Bland, a banjo-playing patient of a girlfriends psychiatrist father. A former member of Lester Flatts band, Bland taught OBrien to play in the three-finger style of Earl Scruggs.

OBrien had earlier discovered that his father had played mandolin banjo in college. Although his father no longer played the instrument, OBrien bought new strings and learned a few rudimentary techniques. While attending Colby College in Maine, OBrien began to play mandolin.

Leaving the college after a year, OBrien headed to Wyoming and then to Colorado. Before long, OBrien hooked up temporarily with a jug band, Ophelias String Band. Meeting future Hot Rize bandmates Pete Wernick and Charles Sawtelle, OBrien formed a bluegrass band, the Drifting Ramblers. Nick Forster, a guitar repairman at the Denver Folklore Center, soon joined the group. The band, however, soon drifted apart with OBrien and Wernick going on to record solo albums. Assembling a new group to help promote the solo recordings, OBrien, Wernick, Sawtelle, and Forster launched Hot Rize. The band remained together for 12 years. Although their initial sound was very traditional, Hot Rize continued to evolve in a more progressive direction. A popular highlight of Hot Rizes performances came when the four musicians left the stage, changed their clothes, and re-emerged as the Western honky tonk group Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers. The gag continued to grow with the offshoot band recording several albums on their own.

While performing at the Summerlights Festival in Nashville, OBrien met country music songstress Kathy Mattea. When Mattea subsequently had hits with her covers of his songs Untold Stories and Walk the Way the Wind Blows, OBrien announced that he was leaving Hot Rize to seek his fortune as a songwriter.

Although OBrien signed as a solo performer with RCA, the contract was doomed, and the label turned down OBriens first album attempt and dropped him from their roster. OBrien went on to sign with bluegrass label Sugar Hill.

The OBoys were formed to help promote OBriens solo album, Odd Man In, in 1991. Although Forster was an original member, he left the group to host the National Public Radio show E-Town and was replaced by Scott Nygaard. Mark Schatz continued to play bass for the group.

OBrien joined with his sister, Mollie, to record an album of old-timey country songs, Take Me Back, in 1988. Although they had sung together in church and school choirs, they had spent most of their later teens apart. Since being reunited, theyve collaborated on several albums.

OBrien and Hot Rize temporarily resumed their partnership in 1996. They continued to occasionally get together since.