The Time Jumpers

Previous Next

THE TIME JUMPERS –

Suppose you’ve been granted just one night of your life in Nashville, and that you are wise enough to make the most of it. You’re looking for the most Nashville thing in Nashville – the cosmic opposite of Applebee’s and a movie – a life memory you couldn’t make anywhere else. You probably see where this is going; you should see The Time Jumpers. We often struggle to find the quintessence of a place and time, and Nashville has its enduring enigmas. But if you ask me what’s been most exciting and fine about...

Read More
Billy Thomas

Drummer Billy Thomas is the newest member of The Time Jumpers. He came to Nashville from Los Angeles in 1987 and immediately began working with Vince Gill. He has been a member of Gill’s touring band ever since and regularly sings and plays on Gill’s records. Besides his musical labors for Gill, Thomas has also recorded and/or toured with Patty Loveless, Emmylou Harris, Steve Wariner, Marty Stuart, Ricky Nelson, Don Williams, Earl Scruggs and Dolly Parton. During the early ‘90s, Thomas was a founding member of the MCA Records...

Read More
Larry Franklin

Larry Franklin grew up on a farm in Whitewright, Texas and began playing the fiddle when he was seven years old under the guidance of his father, Louis Franklin. He eventually won virtually every fiddling contest in Texas, culminating with the World Championship title when he was only l6. After a three-year stint in the Army, he co-founded the Cooder Browne Band, which recorded on Willie Nelson’s Lone Star label and toured with Nelson. Franklin went on to perform with Asleep At The Wheel for seven years, during which time he won...

Read More
Vince Gill

Oklahoma-born Vince Gill has performed with The Time Jumpers for many years but only became an official member in 2010. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame since 2007, Gill is widely recognized for his achingly beautiful tenor voice, award-winning songwriting skills and virtuoso guitar chops. Together, these talents have yielded him millions of album sales, 20 Grammys and 18 CMA Awards. In 2005, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Gill is also regarded as one of country music’s most generous...

Read More
Jeff Taylor

Jeff Taylor grew up in Batavia, New York, and began playing accordion and keyboards in his dad’s band when he was 10. He studied classical piano at the Eastman School of Music and was leader of a small jazz/rock group when he was in the Air Force in Ohio. He has lived in Nashville since 1990. Taylor counts among his performing highlights his two years as bandleader at the Ryman auditorium for the musical production Always, Patsy Cline, hundreds of shows as bandleader at Opryland theme park and on the General Jackson...

Read More
Dawn Sears

Dawn Sears won her first talent contest at the VFW hall in Grand Forks, North Dakota when she was 14 – right across the river from where she grew up – in East Grand Forks, MN. And she kept on winning after she moved to Minnesota to play the clubs. When she was 17—and with her parents’ cautious consent—she began touring with a band throughout the West and Midwest. “It wasn’t music that brought me to Nashville [in 1987],” she confesses, “ it was Kenny Sears. Kenny and I met in Las Vegas in 1986. I was playing in the...

Read More
Dennis Crouch

Born in St. Louis and raised in Strawberry, Arkansas, Dennis Crouch moved to Nashville in 1996 and is now one of the town’s busiest bass players. Two years after his arrival in Nashville, he became a founding member of The Time Jumpers. Crouch has recorded or performed with such artists as Elton John, Gregg Allman, Diana Krall, Leon Russell, Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Jerry Reed, Tim O’Brien and a host of others. He has also recorded with Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Johnny Cash (on American V), T-Bone Burnett, Randy Travis,...

Read More
“Ranger Doug” Green

Illinois native Green spent much of his youth in Michigan and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1968. He learned to play rhythm guitar during the “folk scare” of the ‘60s. While still in college, he began playing bluegrass and even toured with Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys between his junior and senior years. That experience encouraged him to consider a career in music. He moved to Nashville, enrolled at Vanderbilt University and earned his master’s degree while continuing to play music on the side. He...

Read More
Joe Spivey

A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Joe Spivey has been playing fiddle since he was 16, influenced primarily by the great Chubby Wise and Tommy Jackson. After working at a gospel radio station (where he eventually rose to the rank of program director), he served from 1977 to 1982 as the music director for the revamped Louisiana Hayride. In 1984, he moved to Colorado Springs and formed Cimarron, a band that went on to win the state championship in the Marlboro Country Music Roundup competition. Spivey moved on to Nashville in 1986 and...

Read More
Andy Reiss

Guitarist Andy Reiss left his hometown of San Francisco and moved to Nashville in 1981 after having played in a variety of less-than-stellar rock, show and casino bands. One of his first contacts in Nashville was legendary producer and steel guitarist Pete Drake, who introduced and oriented Reiss to the inner workings of the local studio scene. Reiss first Nashville session was an album for the actor Slim Pickens, a session that also involved such A-Team pickers as Drake, Charlie McCoy, Bob Moore, Pete Wade, Pig Robbins and the...

Read More
Kenny Sears

Kenny Sears was born in Denison, Texas and raised on a farm in Liberty, Oklahoma. He purchased his first fiddle when he was seven with money earned picking cotton and turned professional when he was 11 after he was invited to join the staff band of the Big D Jamboree in Dallas. This gave him the opportunity to work with Grand Ole Opry artists who routinely played the Jamboree. Another contact young Sears made there was Billy Gray, Hank Thompson’s former bandleader. When the Big D Jamboree closed down, Gray asked Sears to join his...

Read More
Paul Franklin

Paul Franklin (no relation to Larry) moved from Detroit to Nashville in 1972 to play pedal steel guitar for Barbara Mandrell. Later in the ‘70s, he recorded and toured with Jerry Reed and Mel Tillis. In 1981, he decided to quit the road and focus strictly on session work in Nashville. Since then, he has recorded with such legendary artists as Sting, Mark Knopfler, George Strait, Alan Jackson, Shania Twain, Barbara Streisand and Megadeth. “They say Paul’s the best there is,” says Knopfler, “but he seems to get better all...

Read More