9/26/08 4:57 PM View Original Post

Welcome Everyone!!

Hello Everybody,                                                                                                                                                                                                               Now that you have found your way to my blog, I guess there should be something posted here for you to read. So here goes. I love    music! It has been my passion since childhood, sitting at my aunts old piano pecking out tunes by ear. After teaching myself to          play piano by ear, I decided it was time to start learning another instrument. Guitar. Being inspired, and led upon the right path by      my cousin Ronnie Shaw, an outstanding musician & song writer in his own right. Now passed away after a long and gruelling bout  with cancer, dying at a fairly young age of 44. (Miss ya Ron old Buddy). He guided me through my beginning's at guitar. Always           steering me in what I have always believed to be the right direction.                                                                                                                     I can remember my first performance in this run down old bar along the Illinois River called The Spanky Bar, which pretty much          washed away during the great flood of 93. I was around 6 years old, and my cousin Ronnie was playing guitar and singing for beer. Something he did quit often. Ha, Ha! I was just sitting there with my big eyes totally focused upon Ronnies performance. When at the end of one of his song's he announced     that he had a special treat for everybody. I sat there thinking wow! What is he giving us. However I soon found out that I was the treat. He pushed, coaxed, and prodded me until I finally agreed to sing a song he had taught me the week earlier. (Chantillie Lace, by the Big Bopper.) At the end of the song, the crowd screamed, whistled, and threw money onto the tiny stage, and I must have had a grocery-bag full of chips and candy given to me. Let alone all the free soda. Wow, I thought to myself, all this and all I had to do was sing one song!This was the final straw that gave me the burning desire to try and learn more about music. Now after performing for most of my life, technology has afforded me the oppertunity to try and propell some of my lifes work out into the public eye. Where I find people either love my music, or hate it. Which is OK, everyones taste are different. The first album (Higher Than High) was formulated in the late seventies. Like most people in those times, my hair was long,(I could sit on it, Ha Ha)and the pipes were always full. You baby boomer's know what I'm talking about. Don't you? Most everyone I knew was a party animal. Either drinking themselves into a stupor nightly, or staying stoned from sun up 'til sun down. Lighting up joints like they were cheap, and they were. Herb back then was selling for somewhere around $10 per ounce, of which 1/3 of it was stems, and seeds, which popped in a joint or pipe like exploding pop-corn, hurling sparks and small fireballs all over the place. I think back then, that every car seat, pants, and shirt I owned was riddled with pot seed holes. But when I entered the Air Force (something my father thought every young man should do),all that came to an end. But the music I had written and recorded then, has become fairly popular once again. Although musically, it is far from being my best work, it still maintains a simple glimps into those times, that endures, and is my most requested work even today. I guess because of all you stoners out there. Ha, Ha!               I have also posted some of my more recent music here for you to judge. Most of it is kind of contemporary, or modern blues in an album called: Come & Love Me. I also have a country album out called Aspirations, and a soon to be completed album of alternative stylings in an unplugged format. I am a very big hearted, guy who loves life, people, smiling, friends, family and the simple things in life. To understand who I am, all you need do is listen to my music. Thanks for your support, and if you like anything about me or my music. Then please join my fan club, each of you are so appreciated, and loved. Your Friend Always, Jim