Chris Hillman

All Music Guide:

Along with frequent collaborator Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman was the key figure in the development of country-rock, virtually defining the genre through his seminal work with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Hillman was born on December 4, 1944, in Los Angeles, where he grew up listening to Spade Cooley and Cliffie Stone and taught himself to play guitar. In 1961, he and a pair of high-school friends formed the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers and cut an album; a year later, he joined the Golden Gate Boys, a bluegrass band featuring Vern Gosdin. In honor of their new vocalist's prowess on the mandolin, the group renamed itself the Hillmen; after recording a self-titled LP with producer Jim Dickson, they broke up in 1963.

In 1964, the Beefeaters, an L.A. folk trio comprised of guitarists Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, David Crosby, and Gene Clark, released a single, "Please Let Me Love You"; after its commercial failure, they decided to add a bassist and drummer to their lineup. Their producer, Dickson, suggested Hillman for the bass position; although he had never picked up the instrument before, thanks to his bluegrass background he was able to quickly develop his own unique, melodic performance style. After the addition of drummer Michael Clarke, the quintet renamed itself the Byrds. At their label's insistence, they cut their first record with session men, which meant that Hillman and Clarke sat on the sidelines during production; the resulting single, a jangly cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," was a tremendous hit that marked the birth of the folk-rock form.

During the mid-'60s, the Byrds ranked as one of the most successful and influential American pop groups, issuing a string of massive hits like "Turn! Turn! Turn!," "Eight Miles High," and "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" along with acclaimed albums like 1967's Younger Than Yesterday and 1968's brilliant The Notorious Byrd Brothers. Internal strife dogged the band, however, and by late 1967 only Hillman and McGuinn remained from the original roster. At about the same time, Gram Parsons entered the picture, and in December 1967, McGuinn invited him to join the group as a jazz pianist for a planned project embracing the history of American popular music. However, Parsons' mastery of country soon became the sessions' dominant focus, much to Hillman's delight, and the album the Byrds ultimately recorded, 1968's Sweetheart of the Rodeo, became the blueprint for all country-rock efforts released in its wake.

A tour followed, and so did disaster; Parsons did not agree with the group's decision to play apartheid-torn South Africa and subsequently quit the Byrds in July 1968. Three months later, Hillman followed suit and joined Parsons as a vocalist and guitarist in the re-formed Flying Burrito Brothers along with bassist Chris Ethridge, pedal steel player "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow, and drummer Jon Corneal. Further honing their hybrid sound by combining the energy and instrumentation of rock with the issues and themes of country, the Burritos recorded the landmark Gilded Palace of Sin, followed in 1970 by Burrito Deluxe. After Parsons left the group in 1971, Hillman stayed on for two less successful records, a self-titled 1971 effort and the following year's Last of the Red Hot Burritos. After they disbanded, Hillman joined Stephen Stills' Manassas, where he remained until 1973, when he briefly rejoined the Byrds.

In 1974, Hillman teamed with singer/songwriters John David Souther and Richie Furay to form Souther Hillman Furay; after recording two LPs with the trio, Hillman issued a pair of solo albums, 1976's Slippin' Away and 1977's Clear Sailin'. By 1978, he had rejoined McGuinn and Clark to record a 1979 album under the name McGuinn, Clark & Hillman, producing the Top 40 pop hit "Don't You Write Her Off." The album City followed a year later, this time as "Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman featuring Gene Clark." They soon went their separate ways, and in 1982 Hillman issued a straightforward country record, Morning Sky. Two years later, he released Desert Rose, which contained the minor country hits "Somebody's Back in Town" and "Running the Roadblocks." The album's title proved indicative of things to come, and in 1986 he formed the Desert Rose Band, a country-rock outfit featuring Nashville session aces Herb Pedersen, John Jorgenson, Jay Dee Maness, Steve Duncan, and Bill Bryson.

The Desert Rose Band proved to be Hillman's most commercially successful post-Byrds project; their first LP, an eponymously titled 1987 outing, generated a pair of Top Ten country hits in "Love Reunited" and "One Step Forward," which peaked at number two. Released in 1988, "He's Back and I'm Blue" topped the country charts, as did "I Still Believe in You," from the album Running. Two other singles from the record, "Summer Wind" and a cover of John Hiatt's "She Don't Love Nobody," reached the Top Five. The follow-up, 1989's Pages of Life, was also highly successful, with two more Top Ten hits, "Start All Over Again" and "Story of Love." Subsequent releases like 1991's True Love and 1993's Traditional failed to achieve the same degree of popularity, however, and after one final LP, Life Goes On, the group called it quits in 1994.

At the peak of the Desert Rose Band's success, Hillman had also begun appearing infrequently with McGuinn, releasing the Top Ten country duet "You Ain't Going Nowhere" in 1989. Soon, the pair joined Crosby in a re-formed Byrds, playing a handful of club dates. In 1990, they appeared at a tribute to the late Roy Orbison, performing "Mr. Tambourine Man" along with the song's composer, Bob Dylan. The same year, the Byrds cut four new songs for inclusion in a career-spanning box set and in 1991 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1996, Hillman reunited with Desert Rose alumnus Herb Pedersen for Bakersfield Bound. Like a Hurricane followed in 1998. After a short hiatus, Hillman returned in 2002 with Way Out West, a sprawling 17-track collection of country, roots rock, Americana, and folk that reunited the artist with Pedersen and the Desert Rose Band. It was followed by The Other Side in 2005. Continuing to work with Pedersen, Hillman released At Edwards Barn, a sort of live career retrospective recorded at Edward’s Barn in Nipomo, CA, on Rounder Records in 2010.

Wikipedia:

Christopher "Chris" Hillman (born December 4, 1944 in Los Angeles, California) was one of the original members of The Byrds, which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby and Michael Clarke. With frequent collaborator Gram Parsons Hillman was a key figure in the development of country rock, defining the genre through his work with The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and the country-rock group Desert Rose Band.

Early years

Hillman, the third of four children, spent his early years at his family's ranch home in rural northern San Diego County, approximately 110 miles (180 km) from Los Angeles. He has credited his older sister with exciting his interest in country and folk music when she returned from college during the late 1950s with folk music records by The New Lost City Ramblers and others. Hillman soon began watching many of the country-music shows on local television in southern California at the time such as Town Hall Party, The Spade Cooley Show and Cal's Corral. Hillman's mother encouraged his musical interests and bought him his first guitar; shortly thereafter he developed an interest in bluegrass, particularly the mandolin. At age 15 Hillman went to Los Angeles to see the Kentucky Colonels bluegrass band at the Ash Grove, and later convinced his family to allow him to travel by train to Berkeley for lessons from mandolinist Scott Hambly. Around this time, Hillman's father died.

He became known in San Diego's folk music community as a solid player; this won him an invitation to join his first band, the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers. The band lasted barely two years, only recording one album (Blue Grass Favorites, which was distributed in supermarkets); however, it has a posthumous reputation as the spawning ground for a number of musicians who went on to play in the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Byrds, Hearts & Flowers, and the Country Gazette. When the band broke up in late 1963 Hillman received an invitation to join the Golden State Boys, regarded as the top bluegrass band in southern California and featuring future country star Vern Gosdin, his brother Rex and banjoist Don Parmley (later of the Bluegrass Cardinals). Shortly thereafter the band changed its name to The Hillmen; soon Hillman was appearing regularly on television and using a fictitious ID, "Chris Hardin", to allow the underage musician into the country bars where many of his gigs were played. When the Hillmen folded, he briefly joined a spinoff of Randy Sparks' New Christy Minstrels known as the Green Grass Revival.

The Byrds

At this point a frustrated Hillman considered quitting music and enrolling at UCLA when he received an offer from The Hillmen's former manager and producer, Jim Dickson, to join Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, David Crosby, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke in a new band, The Byrds. Hillman was recruited to play bass guitar, although he had never picked up the instrument before. Thanks to his bluegrass background, he quickly developed his own melodic style on the instrument. The Byrds' first single, a jangly cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man", was an international hit and marked the birth of folk rock. During the mid-1960s the Byrds ranked as one of the most successful and influential American pop groups; they recorded a string of hits, including "Turn! Turn! Turn!", "Eight Miles High" and "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star".

Hillman kept a low profile on the band's first two albums, on which McGuinn and Clark shared lead vocals with Crosby adding high harmony. However, Clark's departure in 1966 and Crosby's growing restlessness allowed Hillman the opportunity to develop as a singer and songwriter in the group. He came into his own on the Byrds' 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday, co-writing and sharing lead vocals with McGuinn on the hit "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star". Hillman also wrote (and sang) the minor hit "Have You Seen Her Face", "Thoughts and Words", "Time Between" and "The Girl with No Name", the latter two demonstrating his bluegrass and country roots. Hillman's prominence continued with the Byrds' next album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, on which he shared songwriting credit on seven of the album's eleven songs.

Pioneering country rock

Internal strife dogged the Byrds, and by the beginning of 1968 the band was down to two original members (Hillman and McGuinn), with Hillman's cousin Kevin Kelley on drums. They then hired Gram Parsons to replace Crosby. Hillman and Parsons changed the Byrds' musical direction, helping to usher in a new genre known as country rock when they recorded the album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Once again Hillman seemed to recede into the background, leaving most of the vocals to Parsons and McGuinn and concentrating on bass and mandolin. Parsons left the band shortly thereafter; Hillman brought in former Kentucky Colonels guitarist Clarence White as a replacement, but this lineup was short-lived when Hillman himself left a few weeks later.

The Flying Burrito Brothers

Hillman teamed with Parsons again (this time as vocalist, guitarist and songwriter) to form the Flying Burrito Brothers. Further honing their pioneering country-rock hybrid sound by combining the energy, instrumentation and attitude of rock and roll with the issues and themes of country music, the Burritos recorded the landmark The Gilded Palace of Sin followed by 1970's Burrito Deluxe. Parsons was out of the lineup by June 1970 (replaced by future Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon) when the band toured Canada as part of the Festival Express tour, with Hillman reverting to bass guitar. Hillman stayed with the band for two less-successful records, bringing in the Byrds' Michael Clarke and future Firefall singer Rick Roberts for another short-lived lineup.

1970s

Before the Flying Burrito Brothers disbanded, Hillman joined Stephen Stills' band Manassas; he remained with Manasses until 1973, when he briefly rejoined the original lineup of the Byrds for a reunion album on Asylum Records. In 1974, Hillman teamed with singer-songwriter Richie Furay (who co-founded Buffalo Springfield and Poco) and songwriter J. D. Souther (who co-wrote much of the Eagles' early repertoire) in the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. The trio never quite gelled, and broke up in 1975 after two albums and internal squabbles.

Hillman released two solo albums, Slippin' Away and Clear Sailin', which included several songs co-written with Crawdaddy magazine editor Peter Knobler. One of their songs, "Step on Out," was recorded by The Oak Ridge Boys on their 1985 album and became the title cut. He was also an in-demand studio musician, playing and singing on sessions for Gene Clark, Dillard & Clark, Poco, Dan Fogelberg and others. After an early 1977 British tour reunited him with Roger McGuinn and Gene Clark, the trio stayed together for two McGuinn-Clark-Hillman albums (on which Hillman continued his songwriting collaboration with Knobler) and one under the McGuinn-Hillman name, with a hit single in 1979's "Don't You Write Her Off".

Desert Rose Band

By the early 1980s Hillman had returned to his bluegrass and country roots, recording two acclaimed (mainly acoustic) albums for Sugar Hill Records with singer/guitarist/banjo player Herb Pedersen (a former member of The Dillards). Soon after, Hillman and Pedersen formed the Desert Rose Band; this proved to be Hillman's most commercially-successful post-Byrds project. Their first LP, an eponymously titled 1987 outing, generated two Top Ten country hits in "Love Reunited" (written with Steve Hill), "One Step Forward" and the number-one single "He's Back and I'm Blue." From 1987 until late 1993 the band recorded seven albums and had a string of 16 country-music hits (the majority of which were in the country Top Ten) and a number of Academy of Country Music awards before disbanding in 1994. As Hillman said, "We definitely quit while we were ahead."

The Desert Rose Band reunited when John Jorgenson performed with Hillman, Herb Pederson, Jay Dee Maness and Bill Bryson on May 2, 2008 at the Station Inn in Nashville. This lineup is the best known, and includes all of the original members present on the hit albums from the 1980s. At this show, Hillman said it was the first time they had played together in 19 years. They went through a string of DRB hits but were unable to play "He's Back and I'm Blue" because Hillman said he had forgotten the words. This sold-out show prompted Hillman and the band to play a handful of other reunion shows at clubs and music festivals throughout the U.S. Several of these were recorded for inclusion on a live album, which Hillman hopes to release in the U.S. and Europe. If released, this will be the Desert Rose Band's only live album.

1990s and beyond

At the peak of the Desert Rose Band's success, Hillman began appearing infrequently with McGuinn. A duet recorded by the pair for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will The Circle Be Unbroken Vol. II album, "You Ain't Going Nowhere", reached the Country Top 10 in 1989. Soon the pair joined Crosby in a reformed Byrds, playing a handful of club dates. In 1990 they appeared at a tribute to Roy Orbison, performing "Mr. Tambourine Man" with the song's composer Bob Dylan. That same year the Byrds cut four new songs for inclusion in a career-spanning box set, and in 1991 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1996 Hillman reunited with Desert Rose Band alumnus Herb Pederson for the CD Bakersfield Bound. Like a Hurricane (1998) and three bluegrass-flavored releases on Rounder Records with Pedersen, Larry Rice and Tony Rice followed. He appeared on the 1999 album Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons in a duet with Steve Earle on "High Fashion Queen" (which Hillman wrote with Parsons). After a brief hiatus Hillman and Pedersen returned with Way Out West (2002), a 17-track collection of country, roots rock and Americana; this was followed by The Other Side (2005). In 2005 he also performed "Crazy from the Heart" on the Bellamy Brothers' album, Angels and Outlaws, Vol. 1.

As of early 2010 Hillman has been "recovering from extensive spinal surgery, and hopes to be back touring soon", according to his wife Connie.

Singles