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A familiar name: The Who, the Stones. This visiting musician has played with the best
By Troy Moon
Tim Hinkley's name is one of those that many music fans recognize, but just can't quite figure out where from.
"They've probably seen it on the back of a record a few times," he offers.
Head to your record collection and pull out an album. Chances are the veteran studio session performer is going to be listed on a few.
Bad Company's "Burnin' Sky." Roger Daltrey's "Under a Raging Moon," three albums each with Alvin Lee, Al Stewart and Thin Lizzy. A couple Humble Pie projects. Joan Armatrading's "Show Some Emotion." And a couple early Whitesnake albums - "before (leader David Coverdale) "went into that heavy metal, heavy rock thing and got into leather pants and long hair."
But that's not all. The keyboard near-legend has been part of the on-stage band for musicians ranging from the Who, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Waylon Jennings, George Harrison and many more. The English gentleman (who splits time between Nashville and Orange Beach, Ala., where he has a condo) even toured with the Rolling Stones, helping augment the sound of "The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band."
"Mick (Jagger) wants to be Lord of the Manor," Hinkley says, referring to the Stones vocalist's recent knighthood. "He wants to be Lord Mick."
Hinkley, 56, knows them all. So when he opens for British Blues rockers Savoy Brown on Sunday at Seville Quarter, it's just like old times.
"I'm opening up for the boys," he says from Nashville. "I've known them for a long time. A tight, tight band."
Hinkley will probably perform some tracks from his yet unfinished album "Little Bit of Soul," which is being produced by legendary songwriter Dan Penn and which features guests musicians that include the famed Memphis Horns and Muscle Shoals alumni including Spooner Oldham and David Hood.
And Hinkley is eager to perform live to promote the album, which isn't scheduled to be completed until November.
"That's how I'm going to have to promote it," Hinkley says. "I have to think of whose going to buy it and how to let them know about the album. No one is going to just run out to the record store and ask for Tim Hinkley."
But the album (and a subsequent tour) isn't the only artistic project Hinkley is involved in. Next month, Hinkley reports to Fairhope, Ala., to act in the Kevin Allen movie "RV," starring Jack Palance and Randy Quaid. The feature film, expected to be released in the spring, is about eccentric residents of an Alabama trailer park who band together to sell black-market Viagra to save their park from development.
"My role is that of the Hammond organist in the camp," Hinkley said. "A bit of type-casting."
But it's music that rules Hinkley's world. He has fronted numerous bands of his own throughout the years, including Hinkley's Heroes, but knows even if he had a higher profile, it's hard for a veteran artist making organic, classic rock and blue-eyed soul to reach the masses these days.
But he thinks a trend is afoot -- away from pre-packaged, corporate-dictated music.
"What's changed it recently is the success of `O Brother, Where Art Thou?' " he said. "It appealed to a huge portion of the population without the record companies' help. Even with my little Hollywood connections, I'm not even going to get played on radio, and I'm not going to try. But there is a market for this music, baby boomers and others, who have been disenchanted by the record industry."
Besides, many music veterans are now doing some of their best material, Hinkley said.
"I saw the Who in Madison Square Garden (following the recent death of bassist John Entwistle), and Pete (Townshend) is playing some of the best guitar I've ever heard him play," he said. "All that fire inside. He still has it even though many of the so-called great ones just don't seem to have in anymore. I was blown away. And after all these years, that's an accomplishment, because there's not much that moves me."
Hinkley said that he's just happy that some of his peers are still performing, even living. But he also knows many who succumbed to the life of rock 'n' roll excess.
And he talks fondly of friend and former colleague Phil Lynott, the talented leader of Thin Lizzy, who died of substance abuse in 1986.
"I loved Phil and he was a very interesting character," Hinkley said. "It's a shame. He was a very very good lyric writer. We were sitting together writing a song when Elvis died. We kept seeing Elvis' picture come up on the TV screen, so we turned it up to see what was going on. We just stopped. Phil just went off to his room and shut himself off. We never did finish the song."
Want to go?
Tim Hinkley knows them all. He has a story about almost every musician you know. We asked Hinkley, who toured with Van Morrison in the mid-'80s, whether the legendary musician is as cranky as his reputation suggests. (Besides sometimes performing with his back to the audience, Morrison also skipped his own induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Not because of prior commitments. But because he just didn't feel like going.)
Here's what Hinkley says about the lovable grouch: "He's a bit odd. But I got along with him fine. I remember once, we were doing a show for about 5,000 to 6,000 people in Cincinnati, I think. And we were playing a jazz version of `Moondance' and Van was supposed to enter the stage with his sax or guitar or whatever, because you never knew what he was going to do. But as he walked out on stage, the audience got up and put their lighters in the air. Van walked over to me and leaned over the Hammond organ and asked me why they were standing up. I said, `They're pleased to see you, man.' He said `Tell them to sit down. I haven't done anything yet.' He's just like that. But when he opens his mouth, it's all poetry and magic. He's very tunnel-vision about his music and not materialistic at all." |
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