13 May Telluride Bluegrass: Tim O’Brien Band Returns to Main Stage, 6/20!
The 52nd annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival takes place June 19 – June 22.
Passes/tickets and camping still available. Go here to secure your reservation.
Learn more about Planet Bluegrass at www.bluegrass.com.
Go here for more about the history of Telluride Bluegrass. (Back to 2009.)
And scroll down to listen to a podcast featuring Tim O’Brien and Jan Fabricius. They perform with their Tim O’Brien Band on Friday, 6/20. Also check out a teaser for the set.
Since 2015, multi-Grammy Award winner Tim O’Brien and his wife, Jan Fabricius, have performed nationally and internationally either as a duo or as part of the Tim O’Brien Band. In any and all venues, the pair (with or without the band) bring an intimate and warm acoustic music roots repertoire at once original and traditional.
“I have been a huge Tim O’Brien fan since I was young,” explained Grace Barrett, Director, Communications and Partnerships, Planet Bluegrass. “My dad played Tim’s album Red on Blonde, and I, previously meh on bluegrass, was absolutely hooked. Truth is Tim was my introduction to the Americana genre and I find great comfort in his music He is such an immensely talented songwriter that everything he puts out feels like an instant classic. Tim also has a way of making even the most intricate musical passages feel effortless and heartfelt. Planet Bluegrass is so glad to have the Tim O’Brien Band, including Tim’s wife Jan Fabricius, joining us again this year!”
Tim’s early history is common knowledge around these parts, how he grew up in Wheeling, West Virginia surrounded by classic country and bluegrass music. We may not remember some of the finer points of his life though, such as the fact Tim bagged a liberal arts education following his bliss to Boulder, Colorado, where an eccentric roots music scene was burgeoning. We may not have that information at our fingertips, but Telluriders for sure know what followed: Ophelia Swing Band, Hot Rize, and its alter-ego country swing band, Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers, the stuff of Telluride Bluegrass Festival legend.
We know Tim’s sound by heart too: comfy music with an old slipper feel, an artful blend of bluegrass, folk, swing, plus Irish and Americana stylings, with just a touch of the blues and funk for spice. That sound has been a central part of the TBF line-up for 40+ years. (Tim was absent from the Main Stage four times only: i’74, ’77 ’07 and ’24 ).
Kathy Mattea, Garth Brooks, and the Dixie Chicks have covered Tim’s tunes; his collaborators onstage and in the recording studio have included Darrell Scott, Dirk Powell, Mark Knopfler, and Sturgill Simpson. Awarded Grammy’s in both the Folk and Bluegrass categories, Tim is a member of both the West Virginia and the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
“Classic-sounding material stamped with his own perceptive personality,” raved The Wall Street Journal.
Festivarians don’t know Jan’s story nearly as well as Tim’s. She grew up in WaKeeney, Kansas, where father was a wheat farmer and US Postal worker and her mother was a nurse. Jan’s older sister Diane taught her to play piano, later mandolin. She played clarinet in her high school band and sang in school and church choirs.
Since attending the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield KS in 1976, over the years Jan has enjoyed campground jamming at various bluegrass festivals. Her early influences include Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Hot Rize, New Grass Revival, Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell and Norman Blake.
Also a registered nurse, Jan raised two sons and has three granddaughters.
The Tim O’Brien Band is just as versatile as its leader’s music is diverse. With a large repertoire that ranges from traditional bluegrass grooves to contemporary singer-songwriter styles, this Nashville-based, acoustic string band makes it all shine. Today the outfit includes Tim himself; Jan on mandolin and vocals; Shad Cobb on fiddle and vocals; and Mike Bub on bass.
On June 6, so just before TBF, Tim and Jan are releasing a new album on their Howdy Skies Records titled Paper Flowers. The album marks the couple’s first as a duet though, as Festivarians know, Jan has stood by her man on recent solo records and on tour – including as a regular on the Main Stage.
For more check out Tim and Jan’s conversation with Telluride Inside…and Out and sample a sound byte.
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