Chris Hillman

A Third-Generation Californian with deep roots in the Cowboy history of the American West, Chris Hillman was born in Los Angeles, California on December 4, 1944. Hillman spent his early years on his family’s ranch home in then rural North San Diego County “riding horses, and doing ranch chores”. His interests would soon change from spurs and saddles to guitars and mandolins.

Hillman credits his older sister in turning him on to Folk and Country music. “My older sister was in college in the 1950s and she came back home with a bunch of folk albums when I was 14 years old. I was greatly influenced by that, and I started watching “live” Country music shows on KTLA Channel 5 out of Los Angeles,  Spade Cooley, Cals Corral, Town Hall Party, and  Cliffie Stone - and soon got hooked on the music”.

Seeing that his interest in music was a serious one, Hillman’s mother encouraged her son and bought him a $10 dollar guitar in Tijuana, Mexico. “If you stick with this a year I’ll help you get something better”, recalled Hillman. He also started listening to Bluegrass, and after hearing acts like Flatt and Scruggs and Bill Monroe, Hillman fell in love with the Mandolin. Learning that a young bluegrass group The Kentucky Colonels were based out of Los Angeles, a very determined 15 year-old Hillman convinced his family to let him go and see the group. Not only did Hillman meet and listen to the Colonels but also when the group’s mandolinist Scott Hambly,  who had been filling in for Roland White while he was in the army offered him lessons, Hillman then convinced his family to let him take the train by himself up to Berkeley, where Hambly lived, and took mandolin lessons from him.

Herb Pedersen

Herb began his career in Berkeley, California in the early 60's playing 5 string banjo and acoustic guitar with people like David Grisman, Butch Waller, David Nelson, and Jerry Garcia. Herb has done well in adding his talents to the recordings of many folk and country music artists of today.

For the last thirty years, Herb has lived in southern California, and participated in select music groups, either in recording, or traveling on the road doing concerts. His recording discography is like a who's who of the singer/songwriter scene, so prevalent in the 70s and 80s. His own groups, like The Desert Rose Band, and The Laurel Canyon Ramblers, show why Herb is so respected in the industry.

With his lifelong pal, Chris Hillman, Herb is in the process of continuing the type of music they both grew up playing and singing. There is a work in progress most of the time and that's the way Herb likes it.

Television and motion picture sound tracks are something Herb has been involved in since the early 70s. Shows like The Rockford Files, Smokey and The Bandit, the Maverick movie with Mel Gibson, Hunter, The Simpsons, have used Herb either on 5 string banjo, or vocals for many years.

Artists like Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill, Johnny Rivers, Dan Fogelberg, James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, Jennifer Warnes, John Prine and Jesse Winchester have used Herb's talents in the past, and in all probability will continue to do so ...From Carnegie Hall to the Ryman auditorium, Herb's been on the scene enjoying every minute of it.

The genesis of the Desert Rose Band began when both Hillman and Pedersen were asked by fellow Country Rock aficionado and Manassas fan Dan Fogelberg to record with him in the studio and accompany him on his “High Country Snows” tour in 1985. When Hillman and Pedersen returned to Los Angeles, Hillman enlisted Bill Bryson to play bass and multi-instrumentalist John Jorgenson on guitar.  Bryson was a veteran of such great bands as The Bluegrass Cardinals and Country Gazette, and Jorgenson had played the same Disneyland Bluegrass circuit as a much younger Hillman had done nearly 25 years earlier. Content as an acoustic band, Hillman and Pedersen discovered how good they sounded “plugged in” and brought on board Steel Guitarist Jay Dee Maness a veteran of “The Sweetheart Sessions”, and former Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band drummer Steve Duncan.

From 1987 till the end of  1993 the Desert Rose Band recorded seven albums, and scored a string of 16 top Country hits, the majority of them riding high in the Top Ten Country charts. They also garnered a number of awards from both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association.