Tim Raybon

Musician
Best known for Lead Vocals Guitar Bass Songwriter

Tim Raybon is a singer, guitarist, bassist and songwriter, the younger brother of Marty Raybon, with whom he played bass and sang from their teens and recorded the 1997 single “Butterfly Kisses” as the Raybon Brothers. In 2018 he and the banjo player Daniel Grindstaff formed the bluegrass band Merle Monroe, which became the Tim Raybon Band in 2022.

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When Marty left Shenandoah in 1997, the brothers recorded for MCA as the Raybon Brothers. Their version of Bob Carlisle’s “Butterfly Kisses,” produced by Don Cook and Tony Brown, reached No. 37 on the Billboard country chart and No. 22 on the Hot 100 and was certified gold, and it gave its title to the duo’s album; a second single, “The Way She’s Lookin’,” made the lower reaches of the country chart. Tim later played bass guitar and sang in Marty’s band Full Circle, where Grindstaff played banjo.

Pinecastle Records signed Merle Monroe in November 2018, with Raybon on slap-rhythm guitar and lead vocals. The name stood for the two men’s shared love of Bill Monroe’s bluegrass and Merle Haggard’s country, and Raybon wrote most of the songs. Their first album, Back to the Country, came out in June 2019. On the second, Songs of a Simple Life (2021), he wrote seven of the twelve songs and sang and played guitar and bass; its singles “God’s Still in Control,” “Hello Sunshine” and “I’m Leaving Town Tonight,” all his songs, each reached No. 1 on bluegrass radio airplay charts.

In December 2021 the band announced that from 2022 it would be the Tim Raybon Band, putting the focus on his singing and songwriting and letting him take dates while Grindstaff, who ran an insurance business in east Tennessee, played and recorded as his schedule allowed. By then Raybon had largely retired from his real estate business to devote his time to music.

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