If you are looking for an enjoyable read that takes you into another person’s reality, then Chris Hillman’s new memoir, Time Between: My Life As A Byrd, Burrito Brother & Beyond, is just the book for you. It has everything you’re looking for: good stories, fun photos, and music that connects you to times and places in your own life story. Hillman’s memoir is quite engaging, even without the stereotypical sex, drugs and rock & roll adventures that often can overtake a book about someone who has spent their life as a musician in popular bands. Calling Time Between wholesome, though, might be stretching it a bit, as Hillman himself admits he was never perfect, and proves that within the pages, but a story told well is better than endless tidbits thrown together to tantalize minds and sales.
Hillman was born and raised in California. As a typical boy, he loved horses and causing mischief with his buddies, cool cars and surfing. He would eventually discover music and find himself on stages around the world as he went from a kid in a folk-rock band to a country music sensation, dragging his bluegrass roots with him all the way. But life is often not picture-perfect and Hillman had some tough times to deal with even before adulthood.
When financial difficulties hit the Hillmans, they had to sell their ranch and rent a smaller place in town. “When my beloved childhood tree house was torn down by the new owner of our old property, I felt betrayed,” Hillman writes, the emotions he was feeling at the time radiating on the page. A brush or two with the law and some detention from school was nothing compared to his father’s suicide, a shock that stayed buried inside Hillman for most of his life. “He was a sweet, loving man and taught us all in the family responsibility and to work for things, to be responsible; all the things you’re supposed to learn growing up,” Hillman told me during a recent interview about his book. “He was a good dad. He just had some issues that were terrible that just overcame him. He had demons in him and he couldn’t rise above it.”
Hillman spends ample time on his life as a musician, with The Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Manassas and the Desert Rose Band. There are plenty of stories about new songs coming together, concerts, ending bands and starting up new ones, producing albums and finally putting himself out there as a lead singer. He writes about the chaos of playing at Altamont and the sad declines of Gene Clark and Gram Parsons. He lovingly writes about meeting his future wife and giving himself over to God. He is honest about his now under control temper and his battle with Hep C. He praises the musicians he has worked with, notably Stephen Stills, Bernie Leadon and Herb Pedersen, whom he tours with to this day. And in the end, he returns to family: “I think the only reason I survived a decade [the 1970’s] that many others didn’t was because of the wisdom and guidance my parents instilled in me during the first twelve years of my life. They gave me values, morals and a sense of responsibility that kept me from becoming another statistic in those days.”
Being the storyteller that he is, Hillman has penned a folksy, realistic testimony of his life from an ordinary kid to a confident artist, with all the happy trails and sad travails that accompany a human’s existence.
