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Chris Thile

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Chris Thile was born in Oceanside, California, in 1981 and is an American singer, mandolinist, composer and radio presenter. He grew up in a musical family. At the age of five he began playing the mandolin, with lessons from John Moore, whose bluegrass band he had heard as a child in a pizzeria. At the age of eight his family formed the band Nickel Creek together with the Watkins family. Their first album, Little Cowpoke, was released at the end of 1993. Later came Nickel Creek and This Side, which won a Grammy for best contemporary folk album. In 2005 Why Should the Fire Die? was released.

Music and breakthrough

Under his own name Thile made solo records, such as Not All Who Wander Are Lost in 2001 and Deceiver in 2004, on which he wrote, sang and played all the parts himself. In 2008 an album with the bassist Edgar Meyer was released, and in 2013 the first volume of Bach: Sonatas and Partitas. He also plays in Punch Brothers, an acoustic folk and bluegrass quintet. In 2012 he received a MacArthur Fellowship. From 2016 to 2020 he presented the radio programme Live from Here.

Influence

His music moves between bluegrass, folk, classical and pop. Thile shows that a mandolin can be a versatile solo instrument, and that bluegrass has more room than its tradition suggests. Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers brought bluegrass to a new, wide audience.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a track by Nickel Creek and notice the fast mandolin that carries the melody, with fiddle and guitar around it. Try to hear how the three instruments take turns.

Discography

Studio albums

See also

Categories: Artists