Tim Bluhm
Encyclopedia
Biography
Tim Bluhm was born and raised in CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. As the singer/guitarist and primary songwriter of rock band The Mother Hips
The Mother Hips
-Formation and Debut:Tim Bluhm , Greg Loiacono , Isaac Parsons and Mike Wofchuck met in 1990 while attending California State University-Chico, living off campus in Bradley Hall...
, Bluhm has spent the last two decades performing, writing, collaborating on, and producing music.
California is a constant source of inspiration for Bluhm, and like the diverse state, his influences are sprawling, beautiful and multifarious. Bluhm's music, as an acclaimed solo artist as well as with the Hips, his duo project Skinny Singers with Jackie Greene
Jackie Greene
Jackie Greene is an American singer-songwriter and musician.-Career:Greene was born Chris Nelson in Salinas, California, and developed an interest in music at an early age, starting with the piano. At 14, he began to play guitar and within a short time, was able to sit in with local bar bands. As...
, providing vocals and guitar for The Rhythm Devils (featuring The Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
's Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart
Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...
and Bill Kreutzmann
Bill Kreutzmann
Bill Kreutzmann is an American drummer who played with the rock band the Grateful Dead for their entire thirty-year career...
), Ball-Point Birds (duo with Hips co-founder Greg Loiacono), and in his wife's band Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers, is a mix of classic rock
Classic rock
Classic rock is a radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format features music ranging generally from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the hard rock genre that peaked in popularity in the...
, Americana
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
, California country, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, psychedelic blues, and power-pop
Power pop
Power pop is a popular musical genre that draws its inspiration from 1960s British and American pop and rock music. It typically incorporates a combination of musical devices such as strong melodies, crisp vocal harmonies, economical arrangements, and prominent guitar riffs. Instrumental solos are...
.
Bluhm grew up listening to eight-track tapes of Leon Russell, Jim Croce, Anne Murray, and The Beach Boys. He got his first taste of singing in the church choir and it was Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is the second studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released on Reprise Records catalogue RS 6349...
that inspired him to pick up a guitar. Captivated at an early age, Bluhm has always been connected to music's spiritual capacity.
Although The Mother Hips were courted by major labels and signed to Rick Rubin
Rick Rubin
Frederick Jay "Rick" Rubin is an American record producer and the co-president of Columbia Records. Along with Russell Simmons, Rubin was the co-founder of Def Jam Records and also established American Recordings...
's American Recordings while still in college, Tim Bluhm settled into a prolific, slow-burning career. Along the way Bluhm has shared the stage with such luminaries as Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
, Wilco
Wilco
Wilco is an American alternative rock band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo following singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup has changed frequently, with only singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist John...
, The Black Crowes
The Black Crowes
The Black Crowes are an American rock band formed in 1989. Their discography includes nine studio albums, four live albums and several charting singles. The band was signed to Def American Recordings in 1989 by producer George Drakoulias and released their debut album, Shake Your Money Maker, the...
, Widespread Panic
Widespread Panic
Widespread Panic is an American rock band from Athens, Georgia. The current lineup includes guitarist/singer John Bell, bassist Dave Schools, drummer Todd Nance, percussionist Domingo "Sunny" Ortiz, keyboardist John "JoJo" Hermann, and guitarist Jimmy Herring...
, Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams is an American rock, folk, blues and country music singer and songwriter. She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media, or the public. In 1988, she released her self-titled album,...
, M. Ward
M. Ward
Matthew Stephen Ward, known by his stage name M. Ward, is a singer-songwriter and guitarist who rose to prominence in the Portland, Oregon music scene. In addition to his solo work he is known as a member of She & Him and Monsters of Folk.-Career:...
, Cracker
Cracker (band)
Cracker is an American alternative rock band featuring founders/songwriters singer David Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman. They are best known for their platinum-selling 1993 album, Kerosene Hat, featuring the hit songs "Low", "Euro-Trash Girl", and "Get Off This".Founders Lowery and Hickman...
, John Hiatt
John Hiatt
John Hiatt is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including New Wave, blues and country. Hiatt has been nominated for several Grammy Awards - although he has never won- and has been awarded a variety of other...
, and Phil Lesh
Phil Lesh
Phillip Chapman Lesh is a musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career....
to name a few.
While The Mother Hips were constantly touring up and down California's coast, Bluhm became infatuated with surfing
Surfing
Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...
. In 1997 he purchased a Toyota pick-up with a camper shell and began drifting from town to town, spending his days in the water and crashing in the truck. Standing at 6 feet 5 inches the Toyota wasn't the most comfortable accommodations and was soon replaced by a legendary van that Bluhm called home until 2003.
In 2006, Bluhm, Bay Area musician Jackie Greene, and engineer Dave Simon-Baker opened Mission Bells Studio where Bluhm has produced albums for the Hips, Jackie Greene, Hot Buttered Rum
Hot Buttered Rum (band)
Hot Buttered Rum is an American five-piece progressive bluegrass act based in the San Francisco Bay Area....
, Dave Brogan, Little Wings, and the studio has hosted Phil Lesh, Los Lobos
Los Lobos
Los Lobos are a multiple Grammy Award–winning American Chicano rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional Spanish and Mexican music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños.-History:The...
, Rogue Wave
Rogue Wave (band)
Rogue Wave is an indie rock band from Oakland, California, , and headed by Zach Schwartz who created the band after losing his job in the dot-com bust. Their first album was Out of the Shadow which was released privately in 2003 and re-released in 2004...
, Jonathan Richman
Jonathan Richman
Jonathan Michael Richman is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. In 1970 he founded The Modern Lovers, an influential proto-punk band. Since the mid-1970s, Richman has worked either solo or with low-key, generally acoustic backing...
, Josh Ritter
Josh Ritter
Josh Ritter is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and author who performs and records with The Royal City Band. Ritter is known for his distinctive Americana style and narrative lyrics. In 2006 he was named one of the "100 Greatest Living Songwriters" by Paste magazine.- Early life :Josh...
, and ALO
Animal Liberation Orchestra
Animal Liberation Orchestra is an American musical group, currently signed on Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records label. They have released three full length albums...
.
In 2005 Bluhm teamed up with San Diego-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Steve Poltz
Steve Poltz
Steve Poltz is a Canadian-born American singer-songwriter and guitarist based in San Diego, California. He is a founding member of the indie-rock band The Rugburns and is best known for co-writing the #2 Jewel song "You Were Meant for Me"...
and combined his love of the outdoors with his passion for music with The High Sierra Singer/Songwriter Workshop. The four day backcountry experience offers attendees the opportunity to write songs and learn from two of California's most renowned songwriters in one of the country's most esteemed locations.
Bluhm and his bandmates further blurred the lines between Mother Nature and music by launching The Mother Hips Family Hipnic in 2009. A two day festival set in gorgeous Big Sur
Big Sur
Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big...
, CA hosted by the Hips.
When not touring the world in a rock band, producing albums, surfing, skiing, camping and hiking, Tim Bluhm lives with his wife Nicki in their San Francisco home.
The Mother Hips
- Back to the Grotto (Mother Hips, 1993; American, 1995)
- Part-Timer Goes Full (American, 1995)
- Shootout (American, 1996)
- Later Days (Mother Hips, 1998)
- Green Hills of Earth (Future Farmer, 2001)
- Red Tandy EP (Camera Records, 2005)
- Kiss the Crystal Flake (Camera Records, 2007)
- Pacific Dust (Camera Records, 2009)
Solo
- Land & Sea Chanteys (Hufa Records, 1999)
- The Soft Adventure EP / Colts (California Recordings, 2003)
- California Way (Fog City Records, 2005)
- House of Bluhm, (Big Sur Recordings, 2008)
Ball-Point Birds
- Ball-Point Birds (Big Sur Poncen Recordings, 2002)
- Two Discover (Little Sur Poncen Recordings, 2006)
Other
- The Sheets, The Sheets EP (Little Sur/Pacealot 2003)
- Dave Mulligan, The Late Great Southwest (2007)
- Little Wings, Grow (K Records, 2005)
- Paula Frazer, Now It's Time (Birdman Records, 2005)
- Jackie Greene, Giving Up the Ghost (429 Records, 2007)
- Skinny Singers, Strike Again! (Rope Stretch/Little Sur, 2007)
- The Traditionist, Season to Season (Banter Records, 2007)
- Golden Coast Productions, Surf Stronger Volumes 1 and 2 (2007-8)
- Bryn Loosley, "The Wrecker" (2008)
- Dave Brogan, Thunderbird Sun Transformation (2008)
- Hiss Golden Messenger, Country Hai East Cotton (2008)
- Nicki Bluhm, Toby's Song (2008)
- Chris Velan, Solidago (2009)
- Hot Buttered Rum, Limbs Akimbo (2009)
- Jackie Greene, Till the Light Comes (429 Records, 2010)
- Little Wings, Black Grass (2010)