Tim O’Brien and his wife Jan Fabricius have performed together nationally and internationally since 2015. The original songs on their 2025 release Paper Flowers offer tangible proof of a deep collaboration and serve as a narrative of the couple’s life together. Both live and in the studio, they present an acoustic music roots repertoire that’s at once both original and traditional.
Tim O’Brien might operate a bit under music business radar, but he’s been an essential part of the fabric of the folk, bluegrass, and Americana scenes for the past fifty years. Since his emergence as singer, instrumentalist, and songwriter with the iconic 1980’s bluegrass group Hot Rize, the West Virginia native has continued down a diverse and constantly evolving musical pathway. In the process he’s written songs for people like Garth Brooks and the Dixie Chicks, released rootsy classics like Red on Blonde and The Crossing, and earned a few Grammy awards.
A registered nurse from Kansas, Fabricius started dating O’Brien in 2011. After moving to Nashville in 2013, she took a crash course in the music business as tour manager. O’Brien describes their musical evolution: “Jan started adding harmony vocals and mandolin to shows and recordings soon after we became a couple. We would play music around the house, and she would learn new songs as I wrote them. Then soon enough we started writing together.”
When Cathy Fink and Jon Weisberger approached O’Brien in 2023 to contribute to what became 2024’s Bluegrass Sings Paxton, Tim and Jan wrote the song “You Took Me In” with the man himself. Encouraged by the results, the three scheduled weekly Zoom co-writing sessions and the songs kept coming. Paper Flowers includes twelve of those songs as well as three more originals.
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