Bryan Tucker Zimmerman was born on February 14, 1941, in San Francisco, California. At age four, Zimmerman began violin lessons on a violin made by his grandfather. When he was seven, his family moved to Healdsburg, a rural town in the Wine Country region of Sonoma County, California. In 1966 he graduated from the San Francisco State College with a degree in music theory and composition and took up a Fulbright scholarship to study composition in Rome, where he met his future wife. After two years in London, where he recorded his first album, he began living in Belgium. In December 1968, Zimmerman recorded and released his first album, Ten Songs, produced by Tony Visconti. It was later described by David Bowie as one of his favourite albums.