Biography

Contact Information:

Tim Bennett 714/499-4091
tbennettmusic@gmail.com

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“The Whistler’s Father Recordings”
Release Date: 01/21/19


“The Whistler’s Father Recordings” includes the previously unreleased Bluegrass tune, “Never Let the Old Man In” featuring legendary fiddler Byron Berline along with three re-mastered Bluegrass tunes, ”Come On By”, “Burst Into Flames”, and “Coincide”, as well as four original Country favorites from “Highly Irregular”.

Recorded by: Keith Taylor at Custom Taylored Studios, Fountain Valley, CA
Mastered by: Keith Taylor at Custom Taylored Studios, Fountain Valley, CA
Additional recording by: Steve Short at PrimeTime Audio/Video, Oklahoma City, OK
Photo by: Wayne Cartmell
Graphic Design by: Tim Bennett

Order of Songs on The Whistler’s Father Recordings


1. Love What You Do (4:07) (Featured)

Songwriter: Timothy K Bennett
Publisher/PRO: tbennettmusic, ASCAP
Administered by: Tunecore
Release Date: January 21, 2019

Musicians:
Tim Bennett - lead vocal and rhythm guitar
Byron Berline – fiddle
Hal Ratliff – piano
Bradley Baker - harmony vocal
Sir Louis - harmony vocal
Rick White – electric guitar
Dan Cartmell – rhythm guitar and harmony vocal
RJ Williams – bass and harmony vocal
Roger Gillespie - drums

I’ll admit that I write a lot of songs in which I basically talk to myself; that is, if I seem to be offering advice, I’m not addressing you. I’m addressing myself. Whether or not I take that advice is a different matter entirely. I am trying my best to take the advice offered in Love What You Do.

Other than that, I just love this recording. Especially Bradley Baker’s backing vocal.



2. Johnnie, Jack, and Jim (3:38) Featured

Songwriter: Timothy K Bennett
Publisher/PRO: tbennettmusic, ASCAP
Administered by: Tunecore
Release Date: January 21, 2019

Musicians:
Tim Bennett - lead vocal & harmonica
Dan Cartmell – guitar and harmony vocal
RJ Williams – bass and harmony vocal

I had written five of the songs that appeared on “Highly Irregular” in the early 1980s. Johnnie, Jack, and Jim is one of those songs. It did not have a bridge until 2014 and it needed one.

Thankfully, it came to me one night simply as “Pour me another.”



3. The Southern Side (6:26)

Songwriter: Timothy K Bennett
Publisher/PRO: tbennettmusic, ASCAP
Administered by: Tunecore
Release Date: January 21, 2019

Musicians:
Tim Bennett - lead vocal, harmonica, harmony vocal, and rhythm guitar
Rick White – lead electric guitar and slide guitar
Dan Cartmell – banjo
RJ Williams – bass and harmony vocal
Roger Gillespie - drums

This one is autobiographical based on a true story. We were able to stretch this one out in the studio to a musical epic with the help of Rick White on lead electric guitar and slide guitar, and Roger Gillespie on drums.



4. I Really Don’t Miss You At All (3:55)

Songwriter: Timothy K Bennett
Publisher/PRO: tbennettmusic, ASCAP
Administered by: Tunecore
Release Date: January 21, 2019

Musicians:
Tim Bennett - lead vocal, mandolin, and rhythm guitar
Byron Berline – fiddle
Sean Vidrine - accordion
Rick White –electric guitar
Dan Cartmell – banjo
RJ Williams – harmony vocal
Roger Gillespie - drums

Now for the rest of the story about how this song changed the trajectory of the album “Highly Irregular”.

The sessions in December 2013 and January 2014 were with the musicians I would come to call The Demolitionists, an incredibly talented group of studio musicians at Custom Taylored Studios; Rick White – electric guitar, Hal Ratliff – piano, Roger Gillespie – drums, and Ernie Nunez – bass. They have played on my other two solo albums Inevitable Discovery 2016 and The View From Here 2017.

Ernie Nunez wasn’t even supposed to play on “I Really Don’t Miss You At All”, but his bass line changed the whole feel of the song. He gave it a Cajun feel and that meant we needed a fiddler.

Keith Taylor, the engineer and studio owner, said, “I know of a pretty good fiddler but I don’t know if you’ll want to use him.” That fiddler was Byron Berline, an old friend of Keith’s.

Keith called Byron and put me on the phone with him. At this point, we only had one song for him to play on. Byron said we should send him at least three or more. That’s all it took. I had to write more songs that we could use Byron Berline on. So I wrote four more songs.



5. Burst Into Flames (3:34)

Songwriter: Timothy K Bennett
Publisher/PRO: tbennettmusic, ASCAP
Administered by: Tunecore
Release Date: January 21, 2019

Musicians:
Tim Bennett - lead vocal & rhythm guitar
Byron Berline – fiddle
Dan Cartmell – banjo and harmony vocal
RJ Williams – bass and harmony vocal

I was still working my day job in aerospace when I wrote Burst Into Flames. I was tired of being lied to by my employer, so I wrote a song about liars.



6. Come On By (5:02)

Songwriter: Timothy K Bennett
Publisher/PRO: tbennettmusic, ASCAP
Administered by: Tunecore
Release Date: January 21, 2019

Musicians:
Tim Bennett - lead vocal & rhythm guitar
Byron Berline – fiddle
Dan Cartmell – banjo and harmony vocal
RJ Williams – bass and harmony vocal

Come On By was the result of my attending the Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest at Paramount Ranch, Agoura Hills, CA for the first time in May 2014. I wasn’t performing. I went purely out of curiosity.

I was writing songs for a project I had started a little less than a year prior with a couple old friends. Back then, we were just trying to put a cover band together.

That changed when I recorded four of my original songs at Custom Taylored Studios in Fountain Valley, CA in December 2013 and January 2014. Only one of those recordings would be included on “Highly Irregular”, the only album from Whistler’s Father. The other three songs would be on my first solo album, Inevitable Discovery, released in October 2016.

The fourth song, “I Really Don’t Miss You At All”, was responsible for changing the trajectory of “Highly Irregular” and the songs it would contain, but I’ll save that story for the notes for “I Really Don’t Miss You At All”.

One of the things that struck me about The Topanga Banjo Fiddle Contest was how folks would gather in groups of impromptu “pickin’ parties” comprised of fiddlers, banjo players, and mandolin players with a few flatpickers thrown in (all of various proficiency), playing bluegrass standards all afternoon long. I woke up the next morning with the chorus of “Come On By” already in my head.

The first verse is addressed to my actual friend Billy but he’s a piano player so I had to change his instrument because you can’t really drag a piano over to a pickin’ party.



7. Never Let the Old Man In (3:16)

Songwriter: Timothy K Bennett
Publisher/PRO: tbennettmusic, ASCAP
Administered by: Tunecore
Release Date: January 21, 2019

Musicians:
Tim Bennett - lead vocal & rhythm guitar
Byron Berline – fiddle
Dan Cartmell – banjo and harmony vocal
RJ Williams – bass and harmony vocal

Never Let the Old Man In was a phrase attributed to Clint Eastwood in a story I heard secondhand. A cast party was thrown after a long day of filming “Jersey Boys”, the film released in 2014 that Clint directed.

The actor who told this story (and remember, I heard this secondhand) said he was exhausted but went to the party anyway and was surprised to see Clint, somewhere near 83 years old, in attendance and unfazed by the day’s filming.

When asked how he was able to keep going at his age, Clint said, “I never let the old man in.” I wrote the song the next day.



8. Coincide (3:04)

Songwriter: Timothy K Bennett
Publisher/PRO: tbennettmusic, ASCAP
Administered by: Tunecore
Release Date: January 21, 2019

Musicians:
Tim Bennett - lead vocal & rhythm guitar
Byron Berline – fiddle
Dan Cartmell – banjo and harmony vocal
RJ Williams – bass and harmony vocal

Coincide is one the songs I wrote in the early 1980s, maybe even before that. It also needed a bridge. I finally came up with one thirty years later.




Tim Bennett grew up in Southern California listening to a wide variety of music from Rock, Pop, Country, Blues, Folk, and Bluegrass.

Tim is the former lead singer/songwriter for the band Whistler’s Father, an Americana group whose independent 2015 release “Highly Irregular” received airplay in the United States and Europe. "I Really Don't Miss You At All" made the Top 40 of The Roots Music Report Americana Country Chart and reached The Top 75 on The Fan Voted Chart