Tiny Legs Tim
Call Us When It's Over
Growing up in rural Westouter, Belgium, Tim discovered his love for blues music through his father's record collection, including an acoustic album by Blind Lemon Jefferson. From the age of eight he took classical guitar lessons and soon began to write his own songs. Tim formed his own blues band at the age of 17. Tim went to Ghent to study biology at university and lived there for the rest of his life. He worked as a teacher for a time and made music as a hobby with his band The Heartfakers. At the age of 20, a 9-year ordeal began. Even as a child he had problems with his liver, which were not properly diagnosed at the time. This was to take revenge, because as a young man he spent almost a decade in the hospital for multiple liver transplants and was constantly fighting for his life. While still in bed, Tim focused on discovering his grandfather's slide guitar, exploring blues classics like the Delta Blues, and writing songs. At the time, he vowed that if he survived, he would continue his life as a professional musician. In 2009 he released his debut EP Please Dr. Please as Tiny Legs Tim & The Concrete Blues Band. He then focused a few years on releasing solo work as a singer-songwriter. His stage name, Tiny Legs, was a reference to his small and thin appearance, which was a result of his severe liver disease. Inspiration came from some of his blues heroes like Blind Willy Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy and Sleepy John Estes, who also have three-part names often describing a physical trait. He thought it was a weird name that had a self-referential effect. It was a way of dealing with his "new" body. He continued to record albums, sometimes solo, sometimes with a drummer or harmonica player, or as on the wonderful 2019 album Elsewhere Bound with an 8-piece band. For Call Us When It's Over Tim formed a new band of 4 who recorded these 6 tracks during the pandemic (hence the album title). This band blew our minds at the Goezot festival in Turnhout in September 2021. We did straight away reached an agreement that was hopefully the start of a long and fruitful relationship, which was not to be as Tim de Graeve died in hospital during an operation in May 2022.