Born in 1954, O'Brien grew up in Wheeling, West Virginia, listening to the Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller records played by his parents and a Polish housekeeper's Lawrence Welk recordings. A weekly country music radio show, The Saturday Night Jamboree, broadcast from a local theater sparked a life-long fire in the young O'Brien. During these impressionable days he saw performances by country and rockabilly legends such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and Roger Miller.

He got his first guitar at the age of 12 and he played with numerous rock bands in high school. He was steered towards country and bluegrass music by Roger Bland, a banjo-playing patient of a girlfriend's psychiatrist father. A former member of Lester Flatt's band, Bland taught O'Brien to play in the three-finger style of Earl Scruggs.

After a year at Colby College in Maine, he left school to head west. Tim moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he met future Hot Rize band mates, a band which stayed together for 12 years and continues to get together from time to time. Although their initial sound was very traditional, Hot Rize continued to evolve in a more progressive direction. A tremendously popular part of Hot Rize's performances came when the four musicians left the stage, changed wardrobe and re-emerged as the western honky tonk group, Red Knuckles &The Trailblazers. The joke grew, and the group actually recorded several albums under this guise.

O'Brien has also collaborated on several albums with his sister, Mollie. They spent most of their later teens apart but sang in church and school choirs together.

O'Brien met Kathy Mattea, who joins him on two tracks from The Crossing, while performing at the Summerlights Festival in Nashville. After Mattea had hits with covers of his songs, "Untold Stories" and "Walk The Way The Wind Blows," O'Brien decided to leave Hot Rize to spend more time crafting songs. His songs have since been recorded by The Johnson Mountain Boys, Garth Brooks, Laurie Lewis, The Seldom Scene and The New Grass Revival.

The Crossing, released in 1999, was a landmark album that featured Tim O'Brien and other American musicians collaborating with Irish musicians. It was the inevitable next step for Tim O'Brien, a multi-instrumentalist, song crafter and true spearhead of the contemporary bluegrass movement. Like many Irish-Americans, Tim has taken a recent interest in his Irish roots, tracing lineage back to his great-grandfather Thomas O'Brien, from County Cavan, who came to America in 1851. 

Tim O'Brien has his own band known as the O'Boys. He also collaborates with songwriter Darrell Scottold time musicians John Hermann and Dirk Powelland with the members of New Grange.

In the year 2001, Tim O'Brien was appointed president of the International Bluegrass Music Asssociation (IBMA). That same year, a new album in collaboration with Irish musicians came out. Although titled Two Journeys, it is also known as The Crossing 2.

Red On Blonde (Sugar Hill 3853)

Rock In My Shoe (Sugar Hill 3835)

Odd Man In (Sugar Hill 3790)

Hard Year Blues Flying Fish 319)

The Crossing - (Alula Records Alu-1014, 1999)

Songs From The Mountain (Howdy Skies HS-1002)

Two Journeys (Howdy Skies HS-1004, 2001)

Away Out On The Mountain (Sugar Hill, #3825
Remember Me (Sugar Hill, #3804
Take Me Back (Sugar Hill, #3766

The Ophelia Swing Band

Hot Rize

Take It Home (Sugar Hill, #3784
Untold Stories (Sugar Hill, #3756
Traditional Ties (Sugar Hill, #3748
In Concert - Flying Fish #315
Radio Boogie - Flying Fish #231
Hot Rize - Flying Fish #206

Red Knuckles And The Trailblazers

Shades Of The Past (Sugar Hill, #3767
Honky Tonk Swing Music, The French Way - ADA #2005
Hot Rize Presents Red Knuckles &The Trailblazers - Flying Fish #279

Compilations

Garrison Keillor - Prairie Home Companion Comedy
Tellulive - The Festival Tapes
Planet Bluegrass - The 1992 Telluride Bluegrass Festival
Daddies Sing Good Night (Sugar Hill, #3821
Sugar Plums (Sugar Hill, #3796
True Life Blues - Songs

*out of print

*out of print