Internationally acclaimed bluegrass folk musician and Grammy Award-winning artist Tim O'Brien is playing live gigs in Wanaka and Dunedin during October. He talks to Matthew Haggart.
Acclaimed bluegrass musician Tim O'Brien started out in the American country music scene with a songbook of 200 tunes and the belief that if he kept learning more "I should be all right".
More than 30 years later, the veteran folk music virtuoso has worked with most of the top names in the "Americana" scene, including Steve Earle, Alison Krauss, and Earl Scruggs, collected a Grammy Award, and won multiple International Bluegrass Music Association (IMBA) awards.
The West Virginian native has chosen to start his first New Zealand tour with a surprise gig in Wanaka this Friday before O'Brien and his new outfit, the Two Oceans Trio, play at four folk music festivals during the next two weeks.
The tour stops in Dunedin for the group's penultimate New Zealand appearance at The Glenroy Auditorium on October 31 as part of the Dunedin Celtic Arts Festival.
A singer-songwriter, O'Brien is also a multi-talented instrumentalist who can play guitar, banjo, fiddle, and mandolin.
Speaking to Play from San Francisco, O'Brien is recovering after a bluegrass festival - put on by a "billionaire" fan of the country music genre which attracted 100,000 people to the free event and included such folk music luminaries as Emmy Lou Harris.
"It was kind of a zoo. You don't usually expect to see that many people at a bluegrass festival," he says, laughing.
While the veteran performer isn't expecting the same kind of crowds for his maiden trip to New Zealand, he's looking forward to splicing a schedule of concerts with a liberal amount of sightseeing.
"I think it's quite an exotic location for someone to be touring from the States. I've got a few days off between gigs so my wife and I will be trying to do as much as we can to see the place," he says.
O'Brien's musical repertoire has come a long way since his initial foray into the country scene, as a 19-year-old bluegrass fanatic, "who headed west" armed with 200 songs.
He started out in Boulder, Colorado, becoming part of the country music scene during the 1970s, and eventually formed Hot Rize - a bluegrass quartet which quickly gained a reputation for its traditional sound.
The respected roots group disbanded in 1990 and O'Brien moved to Nashville to embark on a successful solo career. He has released 13 albums since his 1991 Odd Man debut.
"I wanted to do the whole spectrum of folk music from one guy singing and playing guitar or fiddle to a full band with electric guitar," he says.
In 2005 he won a Grammy Award - the American music industry's answer to the Oscars - for the Best Traditional Folk Album for Fiddler's Green.
That career highlight was followed by an IMBA male vocalist of the year award for 2006 - the second time he had been honoured by the IMBA as the top male singer after first winning the award in 1993.
The Two Oceans Trio tour will feature a mix of self-penned songs alongside more traditional Americana folk tunes, O'Brien says.
The new outfit has recently released a self-titled CD recorded in Nashville and Dublin, with the latter city doubling as a hometown for the other members of the Two Oceans Trio: bassist Trevor Hutchinson and guitarist Gerry Paul.
Hutchinson and Paul are no strangers to New Zealand - the pair visited for various tours in the guise of their respective musical outfits Lunasa and Grada.
Hutchinson is a sought-after session musician from Dublin, who originally made his name with the Waterboys in 1986, before recording with Irish musician Sharon Shannon and subsequently co-founding Lunasa - a band Mojo magazine has called the "gods of Irish music".
New Zealand-born Paul, who hails from Lower Hutt, also has an Irish music background. The guitarist is a co-founder of traditional Irish roots band Grada, a regular visitor to New Zealand shores, which recently recorded its fourth album featuring O'Brien in the producer's chair.
It was Paul's idea for the group to tour New Zealand, O'Brien says, and the Two Oceans collaboration grew from there.
Playing with a backing band of Irish musicians on his maiden tour of New Zealand should be a novel experience.
"They're a real strong rhythm section and it's been great to be back playing in a band. Having a trio together is a good number for bluegrass. You can change up your tempo and things can turn on a dime.
"It should be real fun. Who knows where it will take us?"
The bluegrass musician is no stranger to sharing songwriting and performing dues with international "roots" musical acts, incorporating Irish, Celtic and Americana styles.
O'Brien recently recorded with United States comedian-turned-movie actor-turned-screenwriter and playwright Steve Martin, who, as it happens, is also an accomplished banjo player and songwriter.
The pair played live at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, last week, at the annual IMBA awards night, which was co-hosted by O'Brien and his former Hot Rize band-mates.
After his New Zealand tour, O'Brien will take some time off, before joining Mark Knophler's band for a tour of the United States by the guitarist and former Dire Straits frontman.
Hosting the Two Oceans Trio's gig this Friday could be considered something of a country music coup for Wanaka's The Riverhouse concert venue - a small and intimate location beside the Hawea River, at Albert Town.
"I think its going to be a good place to start the tour. People who live in these beautiful places have open minds. Or, at least in my experiences they do. Audiences from small mountain towns, seaside villages, and islands - they have an eagerness for entertainment.
"You're travelling and playing in uncharted territory sometimes. It lends its own kind of dynamics to the gig," O'Brien says.
• SEE THEM
Tim O'Brien's "Two Oceans Trio" tour dates for Otago venues:
> The Riverhouse, Wanaka, Friday, October 16.
> The Glenroy Auditorium, Dunedin, October 31.
