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Chris Hillman

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Chris Hillman in 1965
Chris Hillman in 1965

Chris Hillman (born Christopher Hillman December 4, 1944, in Los Angeles, California), was one of the original members of The Byrds (1965) with Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, and Michael Clarke.

Along with frequent collaborator Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman was a key figure in the development of country rock, virtually defining America's most successful genre through his seminal work in the Byrds.

Contents

Biography

Chris Hillman, the youngest of four children, spent his early years on his family's ranch home in rural North San Diego County, approximately 130 miles from Los Angeles. He has credited his older sister with exciting his interest in country and folk music when she returned from college in 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 broadcast on local television in southern California at the time, such as Town Hall Party, Spade Cooley and Cal's Corral. Hillman's mother encouraged his musical interests, and bought him his first guitar, but shortly after he developed an interest in bluegrass, and fell in love with the mandolin. When he was barely 15, Hillman went to Los Angeles to see legendary bluegrass band the Kentucky Colonels at the Ash Grove, and later convinced his family to allow him to take the train by himself up to Berkeley, California to take lessons from mandolinist Scott Hambly. It was around this time that Hillman's father committed suicide.

Hillman became well-known in San Diego's folk music community as a solid player, which garnered him an invitation to join his first band, the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers. The band lasted barely two years and only recorded one album, Bluegrass Favorites, which was distributed in supermarkets, but has earned a legendary, albeit 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 and Flowers, and the Country Gazette. When the band broke up at the end of 1963, Hillman received an invitation to join the Golden State Boys, then regarded as the top bluegrass band in Southern California, featuring future country star Vern Gosdin, his brother Rex, and banjoist Don Parmley (later of the Bluegrass Cardinals). Shortly after the band changed their name to The Hillmen, and soon Chris was appearing regularly on television, and using a fictitious ID in the name of "Chris Hardin" to allow the underage musician into the country bars where many of their gigs were held. When the Hillmen folded, he briefly joined a spinoff of Randy Sparks' New Christy Minstrels known as the Green Grass Revival.

At this point a frustrated Hillman considered quitting music and enrolling at UCLA, but received an offer from The Hillmen's former manager and producer Jim Dickson to join Jim (later Roger) McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark in a new band called the Byrds. With drummer Michael Clarke in tow, Hillman was recruited to play electric bass; 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. Their first single, a jangly cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man," was a tremendous hit which marked the birth of "folk rock". 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".

The departure of Gene Clark and the growing restlessness of David Crosby allowed Hillman the opportunity to develop as a singer and songwriter within the group, and many of his early Byrds compositions on their 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday show his bluegrass and country roots. Internal strife dogged the band, however, and by the beginning of 1968 the Byrds were down to two original members, Hillman and McGuinn, and Hillman's cousin Kevin Kelley on drums, when they hired Gram Parsons to replace Crosby. Together with Hillman, Parsons changed the Byrds' musical direction, helping to usher in a new era of music known as "country rock," when they recorded Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Parsons left the band shortly thereafter, and Hillman brought in virtuoso Kentucky Colonels guitarist Clarence White as a replacement, but this lineup was short-lived when Hillman himself left after a few short weeks, joining Parsons as a vocalist and guitarist in the Flying Burrito Brothers. Further honing their hybrid sound by combining the energy and instrumentation of rock and roll with the issues and themes of country music, the Burritos recorded the landmark Gilded Palace of Sin, followed in 1970 by Burrito Deluxe. Parsons left the group in 1971, and Hillman stayed on for two less successful records. After they disbanded, Hillman joined Stephen Stills' Manassas, where he remained until 1973, when he briefly rejoined the original lineup of the Byrds for a patchy reunion album on Asylum Records.

In 1974, Hillman teamed with ex-Poco singer Richie Furay, and songwriter J. D. Souther, who had co-written much of the Eagles' early repertoire, in the Souther-Hillman-Furay band. The three never quite gelled, and finally went their separate ways in 1975 after two albums and internal squabbles.

Hillman released two solo albums, and was also an in-demand studio musician, playing and singing on sessions for artists such as Dillard and Clark, Poco, Dan Fogelberg, Gene Clark, 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 and one under the McGuinn-Hillman moniker.

By the beginning of the 1980s, Hillman returned to his bluegrass and country roots, recording two acclaimed, mostly-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, which proved to be Hillman's most commercially successful post-Byrds project; their first LP, an eponymous-titled 1987 outing, generated a pair of Top Ten country hits in "Love Reunited" and "One Step Forward," which peaked at number two. From 1987 till the end of 1993 they recorded seven albums, and had a string of 16 country music hits, the majority of which were in the country Top Ten, as well as garnering a number of Academy of Country Music awards, before calling 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 reformed 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 Pederson for Bakersfield Bound. Like a Hurricane followed in 1998, as well as three bluegrass-flavored releases on Rounder Records with Pedersen, Larry and Tony Rice. After a short hiatus, Hillman and Pedersen returned in 2002 with Way Out West, a sprawling seventeen-track collection of country, roots rock, and Americana, followed by The Other Side in 2005.

While perhaps not as much of a household name as many of his contemporaries, Hillman nonetheless has carved a permanent and positive niche in music history, and has provided recognized, lasting influence in rock, bluegrass and country music.

Discography

Contains material recorded in 1963-64. Reissued in 1981 and 1995 on Sugar Hill

The Byrds

The Flying Burrito Brothers

Manassas

The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band

McGuinn, Clark & Hillman

McGuinn/Hillman

Ever Call Ready

The Desert Rose Band

Chris Hillman & Herb Pedersen

Larry Rice, Tony Rice, Chris Hillman & Herb Pedersen

Solo Artist

External links

The Byrds
Roger McGuinn | Chris Hillman | David Crosby | Gene Clark | Michael Clarke
Gram Parsons | Kevin Kelley | Clarence White | Gene Parsons | John York | Skip Battin
Discography
Studio albums: Mr. Tambourine Man | Turn! Turn! Turn! | Fifth Dimension | Younger Than Yesterday | The Notorious Byrd Brothers | Sweetheart of the Rodeo | Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde | Ballad of Easy Rider | (Untitled) | Byrdmaniax | Farther Along | Byrds
Live albums: Live at the Fillmore - February 1969
Compilations: The Byrds' Greatest Hits | | The Byrds Play Dylan | The Essential Byrds
Box Sets: The Byrds

 

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