Common Ground Downtown

Multi-Grammy award winner Tim O’Brien and his wife Jan Fabricius have performed together nationally and internationally either as a duo or as part of the Tim O’Brien Band since 2015. In a duet setting with a guitar, a mandolin, and their two voices, they bring an intimate and warm acoustic music roots repertoire that’s at once both original and traditional.

Singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist O’Brien, born in Wheeling, WV in 1954, grew up singing and playing guitar in church and in school. After seeing Doc Watson on TV, he became a lifelong devotee of old time and bluegrass music. Co-founder of Colorado’s Hot Rize, he toured the world with that band from 1978 until he started his solo career in 1990. His songs have been covered by Kathy Mattea, Garth Brooks, and the Chicks. His collaborators onstage and in the recording studio include Darrell Scott, Dirk Powell, Mark Knopfler, and Sturgill Simpson. Awarded Grammys in both the Folk and Bluegrass categories, he is a member of both the West Virginia and the Colorado Music Hall of Fame. He lives with Jan Fabricius in Nashville, TN.

Jan Fabricius grew up in WaKeeney, KS and sang from an early age in church and school, taking up clarinet and then mandolin. A registered nurse and mother of two, she kept her hand in music through local jams and regional bluegrass festivals while raising her family. Jan’s music with O’Brien started informally around their home as he wrote or learned new songs, and she soon found herself singing and playing mandolin in the studio and onstage. O’Brien’s 2021 release “He Walked On”, and his upcoming release “Cup of Sugar” feature original songs cowritten by Tim and Jan.