It took a great deal of courage for Tim Arlon (aka TD Lind) to muster up the courage to ask family friend, Glyn Johns, the legendary producer of such renowned bands as the Rolling Stones and The Who, to produce his most recent record, "Little Mr. Big Man," with former bandmate Screamin' John. Johns' reply was a dream come true for any musician, "What took you so long?"
The record was released in October 2019 and was nominated for awards on the Blues charts and was a great record to tour behind, til a pandemic happened. The album is available on iTunes and Spotify and also on Tim and John's website, sjtdl.com (Screamin' John, TD Lind dot com). You can read more with Seamus Morrison's fascinating story in the Spring issue of Ojai Quarterly on OjaiHub.com.
Tim talks about the epochal changes in the music industry, from the disambiguation of albums into singles which spread through the early days of iTunes, and the way Spotify's paltry artist reimbursements are forcing working musicians to earn their daily bread through touring. It's been a rough road for artists especially since the cancellation of live performances.
Tim also teased us with a secret collaboration with Danny McGaw that he couldn't tell us about but said we should keep our eyes (and ears) open.
When he's not working the circuit as a bluesman, Tim looks after Ojai Olive Oil's trees as grove manager, a job he learned after being stranded in the south of France decades ago. A chance encounter at the Ojai Farmers Market happened because Tim heard Alice Asquith speaking French, and from that, he was hired to prune more than 2,000 trees. He now conducts tours, helps Philip Asquith press the olives into the fresh, fruity olive oil for which the place is famed. Olive trees will produce for thousands of years is properly pruned; trees that fed ancient Greeks and Romans are still in production. "I love it, I'm out in the nature the whole time," he said. Even when bears crash into his house.
Growing up in an artistic family — his father was a rock-and-roll singer and music publisher and manager (Aretha Franklin and Sheena Easton among them, and is still managing The Kinks) of renown in England, his mother was a working actor — paved the way for Tim to start his first band at age 16. His early influences included Eddie Cochrane and jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt before moving on to Humble Pie and Led Zeppelin. We also talk about finding your own way in music as in life.
We didn't get around to talking about English dance hall music, the expeditions of Sir Richard Francis Burton or Robert the Bruce.
