ABOUT>

Brief history and background information:

I was born in South Amboy NJ and lived in several towns in Middlesex County New Jersey. I loved all kinds of music and as a child had LPs (long play records) of Rock 'n' Roll, R & B, Country, Jazz, Pop, and Folk -- I even listened to "Big Band" and Pop recordings of large orchestras. In 1961 I had taught myself to play guitar well enough to participate in the rich assortment of established and emerging music genres: Folk, Folk-Rock and Rock were the most important for me. I received some formal music training in high school where I learned double bass: played in concert and jazz bands. I began writing songs because of the Folk Music Revival that was very popular during the early "60s"; it led me to Greenwich Village in New York City where I learned about performing, the music business and writing songs (from contemporaries and the school of hard knocks). I began performing in school and in central New Jersey mostly in small groups (duo, trio, four or five piece bands), but Greenwich Village introduced me to doing some work solo as a singer songwriter. The New York adventure began with the Sunday gathering around the dry fountain in the middle of Washington Square Park; a network of friends and contacts grew out of that ritual. I even wound up spending a whole summer living there before I graduated high school and during the second half of the "60s" the turmoil of the times swept over me: I and my friends were in tune with the social changes and to some degree were active in the dynamics of it all. When faced with hard decisions concerning the war and the draft I eventually gave into the predominant philosophy of my family: "serve your country". I enlisted after graduating RCA Institute NY (as an electronics tech) rather than wait to be drafted. I served just a little less than four years due to President Nixon's early out -- I was a technician and I served in Europe during the Vietnam era. While in the Army I continued to write songs and even found time to perform; mostly with a couple of guys from the South so it was mostly Blue Grass and Country. Upon returning home I gradually began to resume my musical endeavors and the predominate endeavor was performing solo mixing in the songs I wrote as much as possible. After my first marriage ended I moved to the Trenton, NJ area because my brother was attending Trenton State. In the Trenton area I continued to perform sometimes as my only job and other times as a second job,but I always was developing my songwriting. It was during this period I recorded and pitched demos of my songs but because of my own inhibitions I squandered my best opportunities. So I returned to college, graduated with an associated degree in Physics, but took a break from school after my junior year, got a job, remarried, bought a house. That was the gist of the "70s" at the start of the "80's" things changed dramatically once again. In 1981 my son was born with a serious heart defect; I tried to deal with that by burying myself in my music; my marriage ended. My solo performances gave way to first a country band and then a rock band and I attempted to perfect the business end of music by creating a record label and a music publishing company just for my songs. When the music clashed with my fatherhood I abandoned it to take care of my daughter from my first marriage and my son from my second, and, then I remarried again: Jeanne and I are still married. Jeanne had two children and so we created a blended family and I set music interest on the back burner for more than a decade. During the "90s" as life settled into a predictable pattern my songwriting reemerged and I returned to one of my early genres: Folk Music. When I decided to return to a more active pursuit of musical ambition I chose to write songs in folk music style for three reasons: 1 Folk music was the first music I sang and performed, 2 it was timeless, and 3 I could perform it as a soloist. While I awoke my guitar playing skills, I studied poetry in order to enhance my lyrics; this led me to writing an epic poem and that poem opened the door to a significant number of contemporary folk songs concerning New Jersey history and culture (mostly of the "Jersey" shore). I did resume performing in coffee house venues and festivals, and for a while a regular at Albert Music Hall in Waretown, NJ. I recorded about half of these song and released my Sea, Sand, and Pines CD that did get air play here and there across the country on some Public Broadcast Stations. When the millennium ended I found myself in an artistic rut and also wrestling with my inner monsters which lead me to withdraw from musical activities once again. Then in 2004 everything changed yet another time: I suffered heart failure and became disabled. Since 2004 I recovered from almost getting a heart transplant to functioning well enough to warm up to the idea that my music needed to be preserved, if for no other reason but to give my songs to my son as his heritage. And so here we are; this website is an attempt to make almost 50 years of songwriting available to many more people than have heard them up until now. I have managed to record nearly eight CDs worth of songs and plan to keep writing and recording. I will offer some of my songs free for the asking as MP3 via this site; I am a better artist than a businessman so I do not want to try that again and spend money I do not have -- at this time finances are a challenge. The following pages will list my songs and CDs and delineate which will be available for the asking eventually I will include information about many songs when time permits. Any change in plans will be updated here as well. One last note: The brief bio omits many interesting anecdotes and the dramatic episodes of my life, but much of that is revealed in my songs. Thanks.Jim