Bobby Kimmel

Bobby Kimmel (born September 1, 1940) is an American musician and songwriter who currently performs with the acoustic folk group I Hear Voices.

He has been recording and performing in concert for over 50 years and was a founding member of the Stone Poneys, along with Linda Ronstadt and the late Kenny Edwards.

Bobby Kimmel moved to Tucson as a child for his asthmatic condition.

His father was a studio musician in New York City, and become the principal double bass player in the Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

He also owned and operated a retail music shop near the university.

Kimmel's early musical influence was jazz, especially "West Coast" jazz.

He also listened to the "harder" East Coast jazz.

His passion for jazz continued all throughout his high school years, and it was not until he discovered the guitar (at age 17) that his musical direction changed.

He became aware of the folk and blues musicians such as Doc Watson, Lightnin Hopkins, Merle Travis, and Mississippi John Hurt, as well as contemporaries like Dick Rosmini, Steve Mann and Ry Cooder.

Phonorecords from his father's music store at this time contributed invaluably to his musical education.

At that point, Kimmel fully turned his attention toward folk music.

He began playing both bass and guitar in the folk music clubs around Tucson in the early 1960s.

He started performing with his friend Linda Ronstadt.

During that period he played bass in a folk group with Linda and her older brother and sister Peter and Suzie.

In 1963, Bobby left Tucson for Los Angeles to further his music career.

Quickly he called Linda to join him in LA.

Linda agreed, together they formed The Stone Poneys with LA guitarist Kenny Edwards.

After a few months of rehearsal (including in the local laundromat which had great acoustics), the trio played an open mike gig at The Troubador in West Los Angeles.

That one performance resulted in a multi—album contract with Capitol Records.

The Stone Poneys recorded three albums for Capitol in the mid-60s and had a major hit in 1967 with "Different Drum", written in 1964 by soon-to-be Monkees member Michael Nesmith.

Different Drum peaked at #12 on the Cashbox Top 100 chart on February 12, 1968.

The first two Stone Poney albums mostly featured Bobby's original songs.

The band toured nationally and played popular music TV shows including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

They toured briefly as the opening act for The Doors when "Light My Fire" was a huge hit and Jim Morrison was a pop music phenom.

About the time "Different Drum" became a hit, Kenny Edwards quit The Stone Poneys.

That was the beginning of the end, Linda and Bobby played one more tour as The Stone Poneys with pick-up musicians, and the group disbanded at the end of the tour.

After the Stone Poneys broke up, Bobby created and developed the concert series at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, California.

It became one of the premier acoustic music venues in the country.

By the time he left 7 years later, McCabe's was a notable concert venue attracting artists such as Jackson Browne, Odetta, Emmylou Harris, Bill Monroe, Jennifer Warnes, Doc & Merle Watson, The New Grass Revival, David Grisman, Tom Waits, Chet Atkins and Shep Cooke had all headlined there - and many others.

In the mid-1970s, Bobby also teamed up with Shep Cooke (also from Tucson and who was on the final Stone Poneys tour) Andrew Gold, and LA musician Kit Alderson.

They formed The Floating House Band, an acoustic singing trio.

They recorded an album for Takoma Records, which was owned by folk guitarist John Fahey.

In the late 70s, Bobby went out on the road playing upright bass with Doc & Merle Watson.

They played the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Bobby's last music business endeavor in Los Angeles was arranging tours in Japan by American folk artists.

Working in tandem with his Japanese partner Hiroshi Asada, they booked tours for three 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.

Kimmel went on several of these tours as road manager.

Bobby moved back to Tucson in 2001 and connected with his friend Jo Wilkinson, a powerful lead singer and songwriter from LA who also moved there.

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 second day they heard Stefan George and Lavinia White.