Biography
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Born
22 July 1970 (age 53)
Tim Bluhm (born July 22, 1970) is an American songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He is the primary singer and guitarist for rock band The Mother Hips. He has recorded as part of the duos Skinny Singers (with Jackie Greene), Ball-Point Birds (with Greg Loiacono), and Tim and Nicki Bluhm (with Nicki Bluhm), and has been a member of Rhythm Devils, Brokedown in Bakersfield, and Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers. He has also performed and released solo material.
Born and raised in southern California, Bluhm met the other three original members of The Mother Hips, Greg Loiacono, Isaac Parsons and Mike Wofchuck, while at California State University, Chico.
Bluhm's music, as a solo artist as well as with the Hips, his duo project Skinny Singers with Jackie Greene, fronting The Rhythm Devils (featuring The Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann), Ball-Point Birds (duo with Hips co-founder Greg Loiacono), and in his wife's band Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers, is a mix of classic rock, Americana, California country, folk, psychedelic blues, and power-pop.
Bluhm grew up listening to eight-track tapes of Leon Russell, Jim Croce, Anne Murray, and The Beach Boys. He got his first taste of singing in the church choir and it was Neil Young's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere that inspired him to pick up a guitar. Captivated at an early age, Bluhm has always been connected to music's spiritual capacity.
Although The Mother Hips were courted by major labels and signed to Rick Rubin's American Recordings while still in college, Tim Bluhm settled into a prolific, slow-burning career. Along the way Bluhm has shared the stage with such luminaries as Johnny Cash, Wilco, The Black Crowes, Widespread Panic, Lucinda Williams, M. Ward, Cracker, John Hiatt, and Phil Lesh to name a few.
While The Mother Hips were constantly touring up and down California's coast, Bluhm became infatuated with surfing. In 1997 he purchased a Toyota pick-up with a camper shell and began drifting from town to town, spending his days in the water and crashing in the truck. Standing at 6 feet 5 inches the Toyota wasn't the most comfortable accommodations and was soon replaced by a legendary van that Bluhm called home until 2003.
In 2006, Bluhm, Bay Area musician Jackie Greene, and engineer Dave Simon-Baker opened Mission Bells Studio where Bluhm has produced albums for the Hips, Jackie Greene, Hot Buttered Rum, Dave Brogan, Little Wings, and the studio has hosted Phil Lesh, Los Lobos, Rogue Wave, Jonathan Richman, Josh Ritter, and ALO.
In 2005 Bluhm teamed up with San Diego-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Steve Poltz and combined his love of the outdoors with his passion for music with The High Sierra Singer/Songwriter Workshop. The four day backcountry experience offers attendees the opportunity to write songs and learn from two of California's most renowned songwriters in one of the country's most esteemed locations.
Bluhm and his bandmates further blurred the lines between Mother Nature and music by launching The Mother Hips Family Hipnic in 2009. A two day festival set in gorgeous Big Sur, CA hosted by the Hips.
When not touring the world in a rock band, producing albums, surfing, skiing, camping and hiking, Tim Bluhm lives with his wife Nicki in their San Francisco home.
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