| Tim O'Brien, the former leader of Hot Rize, grew up singing harmonies with his sister Mollie at Catholic folk masses in Wheeling, West Virginia. The two redheads are still blending voices, and their third album together, Away Out on the Mountain, recalls the special sibling chemistry of Kate & Anna McGarrigle's best recordings. The O'Briens sing beautifully--with Tim's twangy tenor putting the twist into Mollie's pure, full-bodied soprano--but just as important is their ability to pick great songs and arrange them imaginatively. Neither O'Brien wrote any of the 14 songs on this album, but their choices betray a commitment to the strain of rural American music that runs through the folk, blues, bluegrass, country, and pop genres, marked by an unassuming stoicism in bad times and a wry humor in good. --Geoffrey Himes |
| Tim O'Brien Just Following His Nose by Kerry Dexter Tim O'Brien is known as a musician who fits on the edges, on the fringes, and sometime right at the center of music that ranges across bluegrass, old time, Irish-American, country, and folk. The instrument that he first picked up to begin this path was -- bongos? "When I was five or six," he recalled, "my first cousin was going off to music college, to Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and he showed me a Latin rhythm on the bongos. Then I started getting interested in music." O'Brien grew up in Wheeling, West Virginia, where as a kid he had a crystal radio. "You use the radiator, the heating radiator, for your antenna. You build one in Boy Scouts, you know," he explained. With that crystal radio he pulled in Chubby Checker, Roger Miller, and the Beatles, every twist of the dial opening up new sorts of music, which he started soaking in after that bongo introduction. "Then when I was 10 and 11, everybody was starting to play guitars, and that just seemed like it might be really fun. I was one of those kids that did that -- took up the guitar -- and I was one of the ones who didn't stop," he said. "Also, we were church people, Catholic church people, and so my sister and I sang in the choir at church, and it was just natural to add the guitar." (continued, upper right) |
| Above left: Tim O'Brien Left: Mollie O'Brien |
| Tim & Mollie O'Brien MerleFest Cabin Stage North Carolina 2006 |
| Thoroughly marvelous Marian was born on June 5, 1968. In forty years she's made her mark in music and dance, education and environmental advocacy, service and social justice, church and community... and she's just gotten started. Her heart is in "home- making," in the very best sense of the word. She and her amazing husband, Paul, have created an environment for themselves and for Pete, Robin, Maggie, and Mitch, that is warm and welcoming, safe and structured. Gentle. Jolly. And just nutty enough to be real. This is a tribute to Marian's forty remarkable years... in which she has shown herself to be loving, courageous, sensitive, strong, smart, silly, spiritual, sensible, and lots of fun. Read on! |
| 1. Mood Music |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| The pair soon began entertaining at other sorts of gatherings, too. O'Brien's sister, Mollie, also has a career as a professional musician. The two have recorded several CDs together and recently joined forces for a song on a project Tim is producing, a tribute album to another West Virginian, 1930s-era songwriter Blind Alfred Reed.Soon Tim was drawn to the progressive roots music scene in Colorado, but after a while there, "I moved to Minnesota, to be with my girlfriend, now my wife. Then just after we'd gotten there, I got a call from Pete Wernick, who said he was starting up a band, and so we went back to Colorado." At the time, O'Brien didn't think it would be a long-term project. "A year or so at the most," he said. "Pete and I and some other guys would get together for a few festivals and play, and promote our solo work." The times and tides of the music business saw things turn out differently: In the band they named Hot Rize, O'Brien's collaboration with Wernick, Nick Forster, and Charles Sawtelle "ended up being 12 years, and it was a good thing. I certainly learned a lot, and we had a good time." O'Brien credits the evolving bluegrass circuit and the popularity of independent radio shows, especially on public radio, for helping Hot Rize get the word out. The band's mix of easygoing vocals, high-energy picking, good fun, and a vibe that reached across bluegrass boundaries to include folk and country- rock listeners without leaving the high lonesome sound behind made it one of the most popular acoustic bands of the 1980s. The members' sense of humor helped, too: The band developed an alter ego as off-the-wall Western swing band Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers, and often appeared as both bands in the course of one show.
|
| Happy 40th Birthday, Marian |
