Tim Hildebrandt

Tim is first and foremost a song writer but has been writing, performing, producing and recording music since the early 60’s.  He penned his first song “It’s Not Me”  in high school when his first musical influence was Elvis Presley.  Tim learned to sing harmony listening to the Everly Brothers, but probably his most profound influence was the Beatles.

Tim attended East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.  He paid his way through school playing in a band called The Wreck Of The Old 97.  During the summer of 1966 the ‘Wreck’ was the house band in a club that was part of the “Chitlin Circuit” in Jacksonville, North Carolina.   The Chitlin Circuit was a group of Southern clubs where black entertainers performed.  Normally just the singer or singers would show up with maybe a guitar player and the house band would learn their hit(s) in the afternoon and then back them up that evening.  They backed up acts like The Dixie Cups, and Mayor Lance.

After a stint in the Army and a tour of Vietnam, Tim landed back in Greenville in 1971 where he formed a group called The Band From Clayroot.   In 1972 the band was renamed Heartwood.  Playing Country Rock,  Heartwood became a regional favorite and recorded their first album ‘Wants and Needs”.  At that time the band consisted of Tim on guitar, Gary Johnson on bass, and Bill Butler on lap steel.  The band grew to seven members when Tim, Gary, and Bill added Robert Hudson on drums, Byron Paul on lead guitar, Joe McGlohon on pedal steel and sax, and Carter Minor on harmonica.   Their record contract was bought by General Recording Corporation and the band moved to Athens Georgia.  Their first album was a re-recording of the original album “Wants And Needs”.  They toured the South and in 1974 recorded their relatively successful follow up album “Nothin’ Fancy”.  The album was produced by Paul Hornsby who had also produced the Charlie Daniels Band and the Marshall Tucker band.

After three years of touring the band broke up and Tim moved to Chapel Hill North Carolina.  It was during this time that he became interested in producing and engineering records.  He met Steve Gronback who owned a studio called TGS.  Tim offered to work for free if Steve would teach him engineering skills.  In about three months Tim was engineering records on his own.  He garnered respect from artists that came through the studio because, not only was he an engineer, but he could relate to clients on a musical level as well.  Besides working in the studio Tim played in several bands such as “Night Shift”, “Southern Standard Time”, and with Michael Kelsh in “The Cadillac Kids”.

In 1991 Tim signed a publishing contract with Old Dam Publishing and started to concentrate on writing and recording his own music. He won an Emerging Artist grant for song writing and his manager Barry Adams suggested that he may want to relocate to Nashville, the songwriting hot bed of America.  He moved to the west end of Nashville and opened West End Recorders.  West End was a demo studio.  Songwriters recorded songs to be pitched to established Country stars.  Tim formed a stable of great studio players that he could count on to play anything that came through the door.

It was during this time that Tim met Jerry Capehart.  Jerry had penned major hit records such as ‘Summertime Blues ‘, recorded by everyone from Eddie Cochran to the Who, and ‘Turn Around Look At Me’, Glen Campbell’s first hit.  Jerry signed to Tim a publishing contract with his company Steep Holler Publishing and the two had a wonderful working and personal relationship until Jerry’s death in 1998.

In 1998 Tim moved back to North Carolina and renovated an old school and opened Schoolhouse Recorders.  It was during this time that the Disney Channel picked up on a song that he had written in Nashville with his good friend Tony Bowman called ‘My Old Summertime” and used it on a program called Even Stevens.  The show went to syndication and the song is still making money.

Schoolhouse Recorders was scaled down and became Frog Holla Studio in 2004 where Tim spends his time writing and recording.  In March 2009, ‘South of The Border’ was released on a CD from KHP records called “Lets Dance Again…Can’t Get Enough”  This song is now getting air play on various beach music radio shows in the Southeast. .

Tim's new CD Hombres was released June 4th 2011. Please click on the Music tab on this site to hear snippets and get purchasing info.

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