Trio

Tim May is one of those top-flight recording session guitarists whose career is measured not in years but in decades, and whose discography is so long that you can really only show the highlights. A veteran of the LA recording scene since the late '70s, May's guitar work has shown up on tunes by everyone from Jerry Lee Lewis to John Williams and everything in between. Coming from a musical family in Cleveland, he was encouraged to pursue a musical career. Tim started studying guitar at age 9, and at age 15 he took a clinic with the legendary Johnny Smith, and also met and studied with Howard Roberts, who took him under his wing, inviting him to watch a recording session and giving him sage career advice. One piece of advice he got from Roberts was to move to LA at exactly the age of 20 - which he later did. In the meantime he kept playing and at the age of 16 he met and jammed with George Benson for several hours in his hotel room. After studying music with Dr. William Fowler at the University of Utah, Tim moved to LA in 1974. May started playing with lots of L.A. bands including Louie Belson's big band which led to further connections in the music business, and by about 1977 he was getting so much session work that he no longer had time for live gigs. By the early '80s May was playing on some of the biggest records of the decade. He seems to have had a knack for showing up on the first breaththrough albums of future stars and mega-stars, such as Lionel Ritchie, Barbara Streisand, the Pointer Sisters, and Whitney Houston, as well as established ones like Celine Dion, Herb Albert, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Kenny Rogers, Liza Minelli, Peggy Lee, Diana Ross, Linda Ronstadt, Donna Summer, Leon Redbone, and on and on. He's also played some classic rock hits - like Blondie's 'Call Me' - and great movie scenes, such as in Back to the Future: that's Tim playing when Marty McFly blows out the walls with Doc Brown's mega-amp, as well the famous 'Johnny B. Goode' lead at the high school dance. Being 'first call' guitarist, Tim has played on thousands of Movies, TV shows, records and jingles, including 'Friends', 'Simpsons', 'Eight Crazy Nights' and 'Bringing Down the House'. May released his first solo CD in 1998, entitled One Piece of the Big Picture, featuring LA session veterans including Harvey Mason, Ernie Watts, Chuck Berghofer, and Mike Lang. That brought him back to the clubs to play live jazz. His second CD,'TRIO', features session wizards Abe Laboriel on bass and Bob Zimmitti on drums. In the LA area you can check him out live at various clubs with many of L.A.s top players.