30 Facts About Chris Hillman

Christopher Hillman was born on December 4,1944 and is an American musician.

Chris Hillman was the original bassist of the Byrds, which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby and Michael Clarke.

Chris Hillman was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 as a member of the Byrds.

Chris Hillman was born in Los Angeles, California, the third of four children.

Chris Hillman spent his early years at his family's ranch home in rural northern San Diego County, approximately 110 miles from Los Angeles.

Chris Hillman has credited his older sister with exciting his interest in country and folk music, when she returned from college during the late 1950s with folk music records by The New Lost City Ramblers and others.

Chris Hillman soon began watching many of the country-music shows on local television in southern California at the time such as Town Hall Party, The Spade Cooley Show and Cal's Corral.

Chris Hillman's mother encouraged his musical interests and bought him his first guitar; shortly thereafter he developed an interest in bluegrass, particularly the mandolin.

At the age of 15, Chris Hillman went to Los Angeles to see the Kentucky Colonels bluegrass band at the Ash Grove, and later convinced his family to allow him to travel by train to Berkeley for lessons from mandolinist Scott Hambly.

Chris Hillman became known in San Diego's folk music community as a solid player; this won him an invitation to join his first band, the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers.

Shortly thereafter the band changed its name to The Hillmen; soon Hillman was appearing regularly on television and using a fictitious ID, "Chris Hardin", to allow the underage musician into the country bars where many of his gigs were played.

At this point a frustrated Chris Hillman considered quitting music and enrolling at UCLA when he received an offer from The Hillmen's former manager and producer, Jim Dickson, to join Jim McGuinn, David Crosby, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke in a new band, The Byrds.

Chris Hillman was recruited to play bass guitar, although he had never picked up the instrument.

Chris Hillman kept a low profile on the band's first two albums, on which McGuinn and Clark shared lead vocals with Crosby adding high harmony and singing the bridge on "All I Really Want to Do".

Chris Hillman came into his own on the Byrds' 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday, co-writing and sharing lead vocals with McGuinn on the hit "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star".

Chris Hillman's prominence continued with the Byrds' next album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, on which he shared songwriting credit on seven of the album's eleven songs.

Chris Hillman, who had brought country music into the Byrds' earliest recoding of "Satisfied Mind", found another lover of country music, with Gram Parsons.

Parsons left the band shortly thereafter; Chris Hillman brought in former Kentucky Colonels guitarist Clarence White as a replacement and White suggested that the group replace Kelley with Gene Parsons on drums, but this line-up was short-lived and Chris Hillman himself left the Byrds due to financial misappropriation by their management.

Chris Hillman teamed with Gram Parsons again to form the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Parsons was fired from the line-up by June 1970 when the band toured Canada as part of the Festival Express tour, with Chris Hillman reverting to bass guitar.

Chris Hillman stayed with the band for two more records, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Last of the Red Hot Burritos.

In 1974, Chris Hillman teamed with singer-songwriter Richie Furay and songwriter JD Souther in the Souther-Chris Hillman-Furay Band.

At this show, Chris Hillman said it was the first time they had played together in 19 years.

At the peak of the Desert Rose Band's success, Chris Hillman began appearing infrequently with McGuinn.

In 1996 Chris Hillman reunited with Desert Rose Band alumnus Herb Pederson for the CD Bakersfield Bound.

Chris Hillman appeared on the 1999 album Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons in a duet with Steve Earle on "High Fashion Queen".

Chris Hillman has continued to write, perform and tour, with dates in 2017 with Herb Pedersen and John Jorgenson.

Chris Hillman released his latest album, Bidin' My Time, co-produced with Tom Petty, featuring guests including Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and members of The Heartbreakers.

Chris Hillman identifies as a Christian although his father was Jewish.

Chris Hillman married former record executive Connie Pappas in 1979, who influenced him to affiliate with the Greek Orthodox Church.