2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Paper Flowers' by Tim O'Brien and Jan Fabricius Review: Romance and Reflections
In a career of over 50 years as a music maker, Tim O'Brien has won recognition, praise and awards in folk music, bluegrass, country and roots rock as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter. He was a founder of the progressive bluegrass band Hot Rize in the 1970s, playing fiddle and mandolin, and of the comical honky-tonk and Western-swing offshoot Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. (Same band members, different getups.)
He won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album for the Irish-music-saluting 'Fiddler's Green,' and shared in the 2014 Best Bluegrass Album Grammy as a member of the Flatt & Scruggs-saluting Earls of Leicester. His 2017 album, 'Where the River Meets the Road,' celebrated the music of his native West Virginia; the state's Music Hall of Fame had inducted him by 2013. His songs have been recorded by everyone from Garth Brooks to Alison Krauss, and he's also toured and recorded solo and in folk duets with his sister, Mollie, and with Darrell Scott. For the past decade, he's been performing live with his wife, singer and mandolinist Jan Fabricius, and written songs with her, but they'd not gotten around to recording together until now, with their charming collaborative album 'Paper Flowers' (Howdy Skies, June 6).
