ABOUT TIM

TIM GHIANNI

Tim Ghianni has been a professional writer since 1974, when he began a 34-year stint as an award-winning editor, reporter, photographer and columnist for newspapers in Nashville and Middle Tennessee.

During that career, he began cultivating the friendships with musicians that eventually led to this book. Since 2007, Ghianni has been a freelance journalist for newspapers, magazines, web sites and an international wire service.

A regular blogger, he also is author or co-author of books about his newspaper career and the decline of that industry, an alien invasion of a tiny Kentucky town, his mother’s death and an e-book about his struggles with government and big insurance after his house was flooded in 2010.

He has published long e-examinations on such topics as The Beatles’ ties to Nashville and another asking Nashville Cats guitarists to evaluate their contemporaries.

He also has served as journalist-in-residence at two Nashville universities.

Born in 1951, the 1973 Iowa State University journalism graduate considers himself a prototypical Baby Boomer, with all the good and bad that entails.

He and his wife, Suzanne, live in the middle of Nashville, where they have raised two children (now grown) they adopted from Romanian orphanages in the 1990s.

  • His soft handshake surprised Tim when he went up to Ali’s hotel suite early in the morning after the great fighter reclaimed his title by defeating Leon Spinks in the Superdome. Of course, he realized the reason was that the Champ’s hands were sore from punching Spinks. Tim spent the week of that fight in New Orleans and interviewed Ali on other occasions, but the hours spent in the suite in casual and sometimes rhyming conversation remain a highlight.

  • “Hello, Tim, this is Ringo,” said the kind man on the telephone the first time they spoke. The former Beatles drummer was calling to promote an upcoming Nashville concert with his All-Starr Band. Tim later spent time again interviewing Ringo for a magazine-style cover story about the drummer’s fondness for country music and the Beaucoups of Blues recording with Nashville session aces at about the time the Beatles were breaking up.

  • The singer-songwriter who changed the vocabulary of country music called Tim from his home in Hawaii for a newspaper interview to publicize an upcoming movie. The two men hit it off in a conversation that sparked an enduring friendship. Over the decades, the two got together for stories or just to hang out when Kris and his wife, Lisa, who also became a dear friend, were in Nashville. When Tim first moved to Music City, one of his goals had been to meet Kris, whose poetic, sometimes stark lyrics made him a personal hero.

  • O.J. met with Tim a couple of times when the former running back visited Clarksville, Tennessee, as the spokesman for a local boot manufacturing company. O.J. was there to participate in the annual sales meetings, socializing with Acme Boot executives and sales force. Tim liked the charming and self-deprecating football hero. Years later, Tim was the Nashville Banner editor who hollered “Stop the presses!” so the paper could publish details of O.J.’s flight from authorities in Southern California.

  • The great slugger and gentleman was working, post-retirement, as a pitchman for Magnavox televisions when Tim met him. Aaron was participating in the grand opening of a store in Clarksville, Tennessee, where Tim was the newspaper’s sports editor. The legitimate home run king seemed relieved to spend time with the young journalist, since it took him away from uncomfortable autograph-signing and glad-handing.