Photo courtesy of Rob Thorworth
Rob Thorworth frequently performs at Hillside Music & Que in Vestavia Hills, La Paz in Mt Laurel and Southern Kitchen in Birmingham.
Rob Thorworth is a musician from Hoover who plays regularly in Vestavia Hills, Mt Laurel and Birmingham and tunes organs and pianos.
Q: How would you describe your music?
A: I guess you’d call it roots music. I used to do more blues stuff. … I’m from Mobile and went to Alabama and was in a band called The Newboys in the ’80s. And then in the ’90s, I was a fronting a band called Gravy. Both bands regionally successful. We had an independent record on Kudzu records, which was local out of Birmingham, and we traveled all over the country and back a few times and had some decent success and played with a lot of blues greats. We were middle-class white guys trying to be blues boys. All of that kind of fell apart at the end of the ’90s, and my wife and I moved closer to her family temporarily til we figured out what we were going to do next. Then 20 years, two kids and a house went by quick. Then I kind of ripped the family up after having enough of the mid-Atlantic and wanting to get back where people talk right, and moved back to Birmingham. I’ve only been back for a couple of years now. I lived in Baltimore up there, and I had a band up there that I played with. We were kind of weekenders. Most everybody had day jobs, and when I got back to Birmingham, I’ve just been playing solo acoustic with the exception of a couple of other band gigs I got a couple of other guys to play behind me. … I really just am kind of playing roots music. I play a mix of some of my own material, and then I kind of play ’70s classic rock and some blues, and I’m kind of dipping my toe into the country pool.
Q: Who are some of your favorite singers?
A: Well, it depends on the year and the mood, I guess. There was a time when I was doing the blues thing that I was listening to nothing but blues stuff and kind of missed out on the ’90s grunge revolution because I was listening to all the old blues greats and really wanted to be a guiter slinger and all that. Now, I listen to a lot of jazz. Piano was kind of my first instrument, and I’m kind of picking that back up. So I tend to listen to a lot of jazz now. I’m much older, and so I guess it’s kind of a natural progression of things. I’ve kind of gone from Kiss to Dave Brubeck, so somewhere in between.
Q: Tell me some of the places that you play now.
A: I play there at the Hillside [Music & Que in Vestavia Hills], and La Paz over in Mt Laurel gives me a gig a couple of times a month, and I play downtown at Southern Kitchen about once a month down there. And just some here and there private parties. I play The Club. I play out at Lake Mitchell at Lake Mitchell Marina. I play at Cat-n-Bird Winery [in Chelsea]. Anybody that will give me a gig.
Q: Where do you live?
A: I live currently in Inverness. I’m renting. When we moved in haste, my kids really liked the Spain Park school district, and so we had to get in the school zone, so we found a place luckily in an apartment, and I’ve been there ever since. I’ve got one kid out of the nest at Alabama, and my daughter is a senior at Spain Park. She’ll be graduating, and we won’t have to be in the school zone anymore, so I don’t know what we’ll do after that. My wife and I are kind of talking about what’s next. We might just sell everything and get a couple of motorcycles and leave.
Q: Where would you like to go?
A: We talk about a lot of things. We sure would like to travel. Both of us kind of have jobs that we can float around with. I really don’t know where I’d like to go. I haven’t sat still long enough to think about it. I’d love to move to the beach, but that’s not really feasible for everybody. Maybe if we lived in a tent we could work it.
Q: Do you ever think about getting back with a band, or do you enjoy the solo work?
A: Yes, I do think about that. I miss interacting with other musicians. The problem with that is you have to rely on other people to show up on time and know their parts, and after doing this for over 40 years, I’ve kind of lost faith in musicians showing up on time or not double-booking themselves. I just had had enough of the headaches of all that. I know if I show up, I’m the only one that has to get paid and learn the material. I can count on myself. … I do miss playing with other guys, and I’m kind of thinking about it, but it’s a Herculean feat to get a band off the ground. There’s a couple of guys that I can play with just randomly for fun. I’m kind of considering doing that right now, but as of right now, I’m just kind of happy playing a handful of times a month, keeping my chops up and kind of seeing what’s next.
Q: Beyond music, do you have any other passions?
A: I’m tuning pianos right now. I never thought I’d be doing that, and I kind of fell into it. When I got here, I had a real estate license, and technically I still have one. I’m kind of semi-active I guess. It just really wasn’t my thing, but I still have the license. I was just in a position to where the market was just kind of going down, and they were raising interest rates, and I was a new kid in town. Even though I know plenty of people in Birmingham, I was just kind of like starting over again. I needed to get out and make some money, so I was working with Mark Hayes and Hayes Pipe Organ Service. He needed some help with his business. He tunes big pipe organs all over the South in a four-state area. I kind of jumped in and found that I enjoyed that, and that kind of led into tuning pianos. Now I’m a piano tuner as well, but I like it because I’m still doing something musical. I kind of treat it like an extra few gigs a month. I’m not really hard pushing that advertising-wise, and I need to. I’m just kind of been going word of mouth and put my name out there, … and I’m getting good reviews. I’m surprised at how much I really like that. That’s kind of leading into me playing more piano and back to the jazz. At least I’m still kind of in it. That, and I like to fish.
Q: Is the piano tuning your primary source of income, or is it music?
A: It’s really both. It’s kind of a mix of the three things. I’m tuning piano, and I’m gigging, and I’m helping tune organs and work on organs. Between those three things, I’m making a “living.”
