With a career that stretches back decades, Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien is one of the most respected names in acoustic music. He was part of the pioneering progressive bluegrass group Hot Rize before he struck out on his own nearly forty years ago, making a series of records that have explored both folk and bluegrass. The Wheeling, West Virginia native and current Nashville resident, who got his first guitar when he was 12, has also played in Steve Earle’s bluegrass band, The Bluegrass Dukes, and the traditional bluegrass revival project The Earls of Leicester, and collaborated with noted singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott.
In 2025, Tim released an instrumental jazz album, Life Lessons, made with Bill Frisell and Dale Burning. That was just one of two records he put out last year, the other being a set of duets, Paper Flowers, with his musical and life partner, Jan Fabricius, who accompanied him in his recent appearance at The Barns at Wolf Trap, where he treated the audience to two two sets of original songs and well-chosen covers.
The two sets Friday night covered a lot of territory, from the delightfully sweet “Fat Pile of Puppies” in the first set (I will confess to being a human marshmallow when it comes to dogs, and my heart grew three sizes) to “When You Pray, Move Your Feet,” a political song built around an African proverb which was inspired by and dedicated to the late civil rights icon John Lewis. Playing solo, he opened his second set with an instrumental that showed off his skill as a guitarist. He got silly with “Diddle-Ai-Dee.” We got a cover of Bob Dylan ‘s “Maggie’s Farm,” which famously opened the set where Bob went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. As Tim noted, he did a whole album of songs by the Bard of Minnesota, Red on Blonde.
For his encore, he played the traditional, Biblically-inspired hymn “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.”
Watch Tim O’Brien perform “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” live for the John Hartford Memorial Festival on YouTube:
It was appropriate that, on the evening before Valentine’s Day, we got a few love songs, too. “Seven Long Years,” Tim explained, is about a young couple pledging their love to one another. Later in that first set, he did “Gal of Mine” and “Paper Flowers.” Animals came up again in “Little Lamb, Little Lamb.” Clothes came up a couple of times in the second set, in “Look Good in Blue” (my favorite color) and “Yellow Hat” (which might be a reference to Curious George’s human owner, but I’m not sure).
The first set also included the fun “Blacktop Rag Mop,” the gospel-inflected “Carry Me Away,” and “Back to Eden.” Tim acknowledged his debts to the folk tradition, noting how he learned one of the tunes he played from Tommy Jarreau. The second set also included “Working On A Building” and “Valley Song.”
The Barns was the perfect setting for this show, providing a low-key ambience and atmosphere that complemented the music. After a long week at work, it was the perfect way to unwind, a relaxing night of fun music that ran the gamut from lighthearted to serious, from well-constructed original songs to traditional favorites. For anyone interested in contemporary roots music, O’Brien is a vital figure whose playing has shaped the sound of the guitar in folk and bluegrass, someone every serious fan should see at least once. He’d long been on my bucket list of musicians I needed to see, and Friday night’s experience surpassed all my expectations.
