Tim O'Brien

Hot Rize and the O'Boys

Timothy O'Brien was born on March 16, 1954 in Wheeling, West Virginia. He got his first guitar at 12 and was introduced to bluegrass by the banjo player Roger Bland, a former member of Lester Flatt's band, who taught him Scruggs-style picking. He plays vocals, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, mandola, mandocello, bouzouki and banjo, and is naturally left-handed but plays right-handed. He left Colby College in Maine in 1973 to pursue music and in 1977 recorded Swing Tunes of the 30's and 40's and a solo record, Guess Who's In Town: Eclectic Fiddle. In 1978 he formed Hot Rize in Colorado with Charles Sawtelle, Pete Wernick and Mike Scap, soon replaced by Nick Forster, along with an alter-ego honky-tonk band, Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers, with O'Brien as Red Knuckles.

Hot Rize was named IBMA's first Entertainer of the Year in 1990 and then stopped regular touring, and O'Brien formed the O'Boys. His first solo album, Hard Year Blues, came out in 1984, and in 1990 he and Kathy Mattea had a country number nine with "The Battle Hymn of Love". Oh Boy! O'Boy! (1993, Sugar Hill) was credited to Tim O'Brien and the O'Boys; Red on Blonde (1996) was an album of Dylan covers, inspired by the Dylan cover on Oh Boy! O'Boy!, and The Crossing (1999) turned to Irish music. He founded Howdy Skies Records in 1999.

Honors

O'Brien was IBMA male vocalist of the year in 1993 and 2006, won the Grammy for best traditional folk album for Fiddler's Green in 2005 (one source says 2006) and, as a member of the Earls of Leicester, the 2014 Grammy for best bluegrass album. He toured with Mark Knopfler on the Get Lucky tour in 2010, entered the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2013, and his songs have been recorded by Kathy Mattea, Garth Brooks and the Seldom Scene. Gillian Welch's early demos reached O'Brien and his sister Mollie, and he recorded her "Orphan Girl" and "Wichita" on Away Out on the Mountain. World Music Central calls him a multi-instrumentalist songcrafter and true spearhead of the contemporary bluegrass movement.