Timothy Hoover Interview
Timothy Hoover is the author of Soul Serenade: King Curtis and His Immortal Saxophone. Tim began research for book in 2001, calling the result a 22-year “odyssey of researching, interviewing, writing and finally getting published.”
How did you get to where you are today, professionally?
In 1994, at a David Sanborn concert at Northrup Auditorium in Minneapolis, David played King Curtis’s hit song, “Soul Serenade,” and it just knocked me for a loop. I had never heard of King Curtis and had to find out everything I could about him. The more I listened to his music and the more I researched his life, the more I couldn’t believe nobody had ever written his biography. He was so influential to so many famous musicians and his story ends so tragically.
After waiting over six years for a talented, well-known author to come forward to write Curtis’s story, I decided to write it myself. While researching and interviewing, I had started to network with the King Curtis world of magazine writers and fans. I was contacted by Hittin’ The Note magazine (an Allman Brothers fan magazine that morphed into an all-around blues publication) to write a feature article about King Curtis. This led to another article about Delaney Bramlett, and finally, writing my book.