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| Featured Artist Link REALLYMUSICRADIO presentsChris Hillman
A third-generation Californian with deep roots in the history of the American West, Chris Hillman was born in Los Angeles, California in 1944. The only authentic Cowboy to ever be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Hillman spent his early years on his family?s rural ranch home in the rural country of North San Diego County "riding horses, roping, and doing ranch chores". His interests would soon change from spurs and saddles to guitars and mandolins.
Hillman credits his older sister for turning him on to Folk and Country music: "My older sister was in college in the 1950s and she came back home with a bunch of folk albums when I was 14 years old. I was greatly influenced by that, and I started watching those Country music shows on KTLA, Spade Cooley, Cal?s Corral, Town Hall Party, The Louisiana Hayride, Cliffie Stone - and soon got hooked on the music". The history of the Byrds, America?s answer to the Beatles, has been covered numerous times, and needs no revisit. But the growth of Hillman from a shy, serious bass player in the background to a major force, influence maker, singer and songwriter in the band is much less known. For the first three albums, Hillman stayed in the shadows, with drummer Michael Clarke providing a strong backbeat to the three part-harmonies of McGuinn, Clark and Crosby, and the jingle-jangle of McGuinn?s Rickenbacker. Hillman exited the Byrds in September 1968 to join Parsons, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, and Chris Ethridge in what became known as The Flying Burrito Brothers. While the Flying Burrito Brothers may not have been the first band to combine elements of Country Music and Rock and Roll - after all, the Byrds had been doing that since "Younger Than Yesterday" - the fusion of the two styles coming so soon after "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" in the Burrito?s groundbreaking but not exactly top-selling (40,000 copies) "The Gilded Palace of Sin" not only created a new musical force to be reckoned with, but even in the way musicians dressed. Rock and Rollers wearing Nudie Cowboy and Western suits! The Genesis of the Desert Rose Band began when both Hillman and Herb Pedersen were asked by fellow Country Rock afficionado and Manassas fan Dan Fogelberg to record with him in the studio and accompany him on his "High Country Snows" tour in 1985. When Hillman and Pedersen returned to Los Angeles, Hillman, ever the talent scout, enlisted Bill Bryson to play bass and multi-instrumentalist John Jorgensen on guitar. Bryson was a veteran of such great bands as The Bluegrass Cardinals and Country Gazette, and Jorgensen had played the same Disneyland Bluegrass circuit as a much younger Hillman had done nearly 25 years earlier. Content as an acoustic band, Hillman and Pedersen discovered how good they sounded "plugged in" and brought on board Steel Guitarist extraordinare Jay Dee Maness, who had played for Buck Owens after his fine work on "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", and former Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band drummer Steve Duncan. The Desert Rose Band. From the buoyant chords that marked the beginning of "One Step Forward", California Country Rock was back and in business. From 1987 till the end of 1993 the Desert Rose Band recorded seven albums, and scored a string of 16 top Country hits, the majority of them riding high in the Top Ten Country charts. They also garnered a number of Academy of Country Music Awards. Since 1995, Hillman has kept busy having recorded six albums, and is close to finishing work on a seventh. In "Bakersfield Bound" (1995, Sugar Hill) Hillman and Herb Pedersen revisited their classic California Country roots. They then teamed up with their old Bluegrass friends Larry and Tony Rice to record three albums on Rounder Records ("Out of the Woodwork" (1997), "Rice, Rice, Hillman and Pedersen" (1999), "Running Wild" (2001). He also released a solo recording "Like A Hurricane" (1998, Sugar Hill). In 2002, Hillman and Pedersen again revisited California Country in the wonderful "Way Out West" (Back Porch)., an album that had the flavor of old California music halls coupled with the voices and chords that were there with the "Tambourine Man", dancing with the "Sweetheart of the Rodeo", flying high with the Burritos, going down the road in Manassas, and singing that good old mountain music in the Dillards - creating a new genre of music - California Country Rock. -Alan Rockman |
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