Bobby Kimmel

Bobby Kimmel moved to Tucson as a 7-year old child for his asthmatic condition. His father had been a studio musician in New York City, and become the principal double bass player in the Tucson Symphony Orchestra upon moving here, a position he held until his death. He also owned and operated a retail music shop near the University, so Bobby was surrounded by music growing up.

Bobby's first real musical interest developed when he was about 12. It was jazz, especially what was then called "West Coast" jazz. That included The Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond on alto sax, The Gerry Mulligan (pianoless) Quartet with Chet Baker, The Cannonball Adderly and Chico Hamilton groups, BIll Evans, Art Pepper, Lee Konitz and many, many others.  These were his primary musical influences.  

But he also listened to the "harder" East Coast stuff, like Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Charlie Mingus, Thelonius Monk and of course, John Coltrane and Miles Davis. His passion for jazz continued all throughout his high school years, and it was not until he discovered the guitar (some time around age 17) that eveything changed.

The guitar became his consuming passion and he began discovering all the folk music guitar greats like, Doc Watson, Lightnin Hopkins, Merle Travis, Mississippi John Hurt, Snooks Eaglin, and even contemporaries like Dick Rosmini, Steve Mann and Ry Cooder. His father's willingness to feed Bobby records through the music store at this time was invaluable to his musical education.

Bobby had been playing double bass in dance bands around town, but now turned his attention entirely toward folk music. He began playing both bass and guitar in the folk music coffee houses around Tuscon in the early 60s. At many of this shows he teamed up with close friend, Linda Ronstadt . For a time Bobby played bass behind a folk group with Linda and her older brother and sister Peter and Suzie. "That group had an amazing vocal sound!" he remembers. 

The LA Years
Around 1963, Bobby left Tucson to go to Los Angeles to check out the music scene there. It wasn't long before he began calling and urging Linda to come to join him in LA as soon as she finished high school. Bobby said they could put a band together, and all but guaranteed Linda that they would get a recording deal.

Linda agreed, and moved to Los Angeles after graduation. Together they formed The Stone Poney's with LA guitarist Kenny Edwards. After a few months of rehearsal (including in the local laundramat which had great sound), the trio played the famous Monday night open mike at The Troubador in West Los Angeles. That one performance was all it took - once everyone heard Linda's voice. They were signed almost immediately to Capitol Records. 

The Stone Poneys
The Stone Poney's recorded 3 albums for Capitol in the mid-60s and had a major hit in 1967 with Different Drum, written by soon-to-be Monkee Michael Nesmith.  It was Linda's first hit. The first two Stone Poney albums featured mostly Bobby's original songs. 

The band toured nationally and played the popular music TV shows of the day. They appeared on the Johnny Carson show in New York. They even toured briefly as the opening act for The Doors when Light My Fire was a huge hit and Jim Morrison was quickly becoming a pop music phenom. (That was not a great double bill!)

Just about the time Different Drum became a nationwide hit, Kenny Edwards quit The Stone Poneys. That was the beginning of the end. Linda and Bobby played one more tour under The Stone Poneys name with pick-up musicians, and the group disbanded at the end of the tour.

Linda of course went on to have one of the most successful and artistically broad careers in popular music history. At one time, she had sold more records than any other female singer before her. The range of music she recorded over her career is remarkable.  Something perhaps never done before by a "pop" singer.  

McCabe's Guitar Shop 
Atter the Stone Poneys break-up, Bobby created and developed the concert series at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, California. It was to become one of the premier acoustic music venues in the country. By the time he left 7 years later, McCabe's was on everyone's map and names like Jackson Browne, Odetta, Emmylou Harris, Bill Monroe, Jennifer Warnes, Doc & Merle Watson, The New Grass Revival, David Grisman, Tom Waits and Chet Atkins had all headlined there - along with hundreds of others. McCabe's had become a folk music mecca on the west coast.

During that time, Bobby also teamed up with still another Tucsonan, Shep Cooke (who was on the final Stone Poneys tour) and LA musician Kit Alderson and they formed The Floating House Band, another acoustic singing trio. They signed a record deal and recorded an album for Takoma Records, which was owned by folk guitarist John Fahey.  That record is long out of print. 

With Doc & Merle Watson
After his 7-year run at McCabe's was over, Bobby went out on the road on several different occasions playing upright bass with folk music legends Doc & Merle Watson. They played the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival together in the 70s. They had become friends after Bobby booked Doc & Merle at McCabe's a number of times, and then produced a series of Doc Watson shows up and down the California coast, with opeing acts like The David Grisman Quintet with Tony Rice and The New Grass Revival with Sam Bush.

Japan 
His final music business endeavor in Los Angeles was arranging tours in Japan by American Artists. Working in tandem with his Japaneese partner Hiroshi Asada, they booked tours for 3 years, including tours by Jesse Colin Young, LA session guitarist Larry Carlton, The New Grass Revival and a bluegrass all-star band featuring David Grisman, Tony Rice, Richard Greene, Bill Keith, Peter Rowan and Todd Phillips. Bobby went on several of these tours as road manager. Prior to one of those tours he took a language immersion course 5 days a week for 6 weeks to learn Japaneese. 

At that time, a typical tour by an American artist in Japan was someone like Jackson Browne playing one show in Tokyo at the Budokan, a huge indoor arena, and then going home. Bobby and Hiroshi took folk acts on tours of very small venues, but over perhaps 10-12 different cities over two weeks.  So the artists got to travel, see a lot of Japan, and got wined and dined royally at every stop.  It was a terrific experience for the musicians - and the food was great.  it was literally all the sushi you could eat.
 
With Geoff Muldaur and Amos Garrett 
Bobby also toured Japan twice as a musician himself, playing upright bass with long-time friend Geoff Muldaur (from the Jim Kweskin Jug Band) and guitarist Amos Garrett, who played the famous guitar solo on Maria Muldaur's hit Midnight At the Oasis. 

Bobby then spent 20 more years in LA, mostly away from the music business, although not away from playing music.  He didn't return to Tucson until the end of 2001, at which time he moved back into his family home.

Back In Tucson - 4 Corners
Shortly after Bobby moved back to Tucson, his friend Jo Wilkinson, a powerful lead singer and songwriter from LA also moved here. Since Jo and Bobby had played together at parties in LA,  they got the idea of forming an acoustic singing band here. They went to the 2002 Tucson Folk Festival together, and on the 2nd day they heard Stefan George and Lavinia White. Bobby immediately approached Stefan and Lavinia and proposed that the 4 of them get together to play music. Stefan and Lavinia were cautious at first, but after a while and a number of casual living room sessions at Bobby's house, they warmed to the idea and finally 4 Corners was formed.   At the beginning of 2003, the quartet began rehearsing seriously.

4 Corners sang together for 3 1/2 years and released two CDs before Jo left the group in the summer of 2006. The first (self-titled) CD will soon be available through this site. The band  also recorded their first show Live at McCabe's, but that CD sold out and is now out of print.

BK Special
After Jo left 4 Corners, Bobby, Stefan and Lavinia had a meeting and decided to try to go on as a trio. None of them was sure it would work. But they had over 3 1/2 years of experience playing together and really liked each other, so they didn't want to throw all that away. It was worth a try.

The early rehearsals were very encouraging. They found they were able to find new 3-part harmonies that sounded rich and full - and had a little edge too. It was certainly different from the big 4 Corners sound, but everyone liked it. So they went to work on it seriously. It didn't take long.

Bobby had just written a string of new songs full of possibilities for rich harmonies, and lots of room for Stefan to play.  (Bobby and Stefan had figured out how 2 finger-style guitarists could play together. ) So along with a crop of Stefan's latest songs to work with, the band quickly developed a new repertoir and a new harmony sound. The acoustic music community in Tucson was quick to embrace them.

The BK Special CD - with Linda Ronstadt
Although BK Special only formed in the summer of 2006, by the end of that year, they were already talking about recording their first CD. They followed through, and in March of 2007 the trio went into Duncan Stitt's A Writer's Room studio to begin redording. They recorded 12 songs live in the studio over the next couple of weeks.

Then Stefan went off to play a 2-week solo tour of Germany. While he was gone, Bobby added double bass parts to all but one song on the CD, and Duncan added keyboard parts on 4 songs. Then Duncan and Bobby started mixing. 

Linda Ronstadt calls 
Somewhere toward the end of the mixing process, and before Stefan's return, Bobby got a call from Linda Ronstadt who was in Tucson and wanted to visit. They went out to dinner, and during the evening Bobby was raving about how excited he was with the way the CD was turning out. Linda said, "I'd love to hear some of it." Since they were near Bobby's house, Linda stopped by and Bobby played her a few of the ruff mixes. 

Linda and Bobby Sing Together Again After 40 Years 
Linda was immediately impressed with the sound Duncan had achieved on the all-acoustic CD, and really liked the trio's 3-part vocals. One of the songs Bobby played was his own Into The Arms Of Love, and Linda started singing a pretty harmony part under her breath. Bobby asked if she would sing that part on the CD and Linda said, "Sure." That was it.  

By the time Stefan came back from Germany, the CD was nearly mixed - and Linda had agreed to sing on it. The band quickly cleaned up whatever remained to be done, Linda came in to Duncan's studio and added her vocal part, Stefan mastered it with Craig Schumacher at Wave Lab, and off it went to be manufacured.  

BK Special set a new Green Fire attendance record at their CD release show in August of 2007.