O'Brien still has a love affair with the instrument, although he hasn't been entirely faithful over the years, his technique now encompassing fiddle, banjo, mandolin, bouzouki and mandocello. In the world of rootsy, acoustic instrumentalists, he's one of the best in the business.
The winner of a 2006 Grammy award for Best Traditional Folk Album (for Fiddler's Green), O'Brien has twice been awarded the International Bluegrass Music Association's Male Vocalist of the Year award.
Since co-founding bluegrass group Hot Rize in 1978, he has worked with some of the top names in Americana music, including Steve Earle, Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Earl Scruggs and Ralph Stanley, as well as Irish act The Chieftains. He recently concluded a tour with Mark Knopfler, the former Dire Straits frontman describing O'Brien as "one of my favourite singers".
Speaking from Nashville, Tennessee, his home for the past 15 years, the West Virginia native is humble about his talents: "It is an amazing gift that somebody has bestowed on me. When you're growing up, you're trying to figure out your place in the world and, luckily, I've found a place."
Luckily, for New Zealand audiences, O'Brien has also found time to head this way for an eight-date national tour that includes performances in Wanaka this Thursday and Dunedin the following night. Accompanying O'Brien are the other two members of the Two Oceans Trio, double bass player Trevor Hutchinson (Waterboys) and guitarist Gerry Paul (Grada).
O'Brien was last in New Zealand in 2009 but had to cut short that tour following the death of his father at the age of 96.
"It was very sad. It was a tough time, but I wanted to come back."
His 2010 album, Chicken and Egg, was thus informed by that event, O'Brien ruminating on life and all its eventualities.
"When your parents both die, the pecking order is suddenly different; you have to accept that. I've been reassessing. You expect it but you don't realise what it feels like until it happens," O'Brien explains.
"Whenever you put something new together you are definitely informed by what you're going through at the time."
Although Chicken and Egg is regarded as a solo album (his 13th), O'Brien acknowledges it benefits greatly from the performances of a core group of collaborators, giving it bluegrass ensemble energy different from the spare approach of 2008's Chameleon.
"I thrive on interacting with other musicians," O'Brien says. "New situations are always good. You can get stale on your own and you need to cultivate collaborations where new things happen."
That said, there is also much to enjoy about an entirely solo effort, he contends.
"I find the simpler the instrumentation the more innovative it is. You're able to get closer to it somehow. I remember my sister [Molly] and I making a record with just the two of us singing and maybe one or two instruments on each track. People felt like they could sing along, that they were welcome. When it's simple, sometimes there is room for you to jump on in there."
O'Brien thrives on the naked honesty of acoustic-based roots music, be it in Irish or Scottish folk songs (both of which share properties common to bluegrass), Americana, folk or country. "It's all in the fingers and the wood," he says.
"Once you open the instrument case you can start making music. You don't need a stage. That's the thing about acoustic music - it's beautiful and can offer great complexity, yet it is completely hand-made. People respond to that; it is approachable. It is simple-seeming."
That last word is chosen wisely, particularly when examining bluegrass, a genre that might seem to have few frills but, in fact, often involves a lot of notes being squeezed into a bar of music. It can require an exacting technique.
"You are organising sound," O'Brien says rather modestly, failing to point out that he is a masterful player of not one but several instruments.
O'Brien believes he was predisposed to music. Before he picked up that guitar at the age of 11, he was able to sing in tune. He later discovered a "natural" ability to pick out harmonies on piano or by singing with others, a talent that has served him well over the years.
"Being from West Virginia, there was a fair bit of hillbilly, country music. My hometown had a radio show called WWBA Jamboree. It was like the Grand Ole Opry; you could go along on Saturday nights and see the pros play.
"When I moved away from West Virginia and was just starting out, playing clubs or whatever, and played bluegrass, people would say 'oh, this guy's from West Virginia', and they'd take me more seriously. I thought, 'I'll use that'.
"If you compare the music to, say, [Lester] Flatt and [Earl] Scruggs or Hank Williams, you wouldn't say it was bluegrass or country music per se, but I'll take the handle if they want to give it to me. It gets my record in the bins. It doesn't matter what kind of music you play. If you play a mandolin, fiddle or banjo they will still say it is a bluegrass thing."
In his teens, O'Brien headed first to college but dropped out after a year, deciding to head to Boulder, Colorado, to explore a burgeoning roots-music scene and eventually establishing the traditional-yet-progressive quartet Hot Rize in 1978. It was to be the start of a hectic full-time touring schedule that lasted 12 years. The group still gets together to rekindle both music and friendships.
"It was a very strong effort and we were all facing the same direction as musicians at the time," O'Brien reflects.
"It worked out well. We went a lot of places with that band," he says, failing to mention the group was nominated for a Grammy in 1991.
Hot Rize became a summer festival favourite, recording a series of albums for the Flying Fish and Sugar Hill labels until dissolving in 1990, by which point O'Brien had begun to establish himself as a solo artist. In 1996, he moved to Nashville, which remains home.
"I tour from here and do about 100 dates on the road a year. It's an easy place to locate musicians, record studios, publishers and all that. It's a good place to be."
Although O'Brien takes his music seriously, he is far less concerned with his own image.
"It is important not to take yourself too seriously. I try to retain that, to tell the audience that I'm fallible. I'll do my best but I might forget my words."
At heart, O'Brien is a family man, albeit one with blazing fingers and award-winning songwriting and singing skills. He's even able to combine his loves: in April he will record an album of Roger Miller covers with his two sons, his sister and brother-in-law and their two daughters.
"All that stuff - the accolades, even owning your own house and stuff - it's great, but it's of more concern that I put my kids through school. That's what I've been worried about."
• SEE HIM
Tim O'Brien's Two Oceans Trio performs at the Riverhouse (outdoors), Wanaka, on Thursday, March 3, and at the New Edinburgh Folk Club, Dunedin, on Friday, March 4.
