Biography

Click here for Jim Pipkin's "Rollin the Dice" APD page

Click here for Jim Pipkin's "Fireline" APD page

Click here for Jim Pipkin's "Spirits" APD page

Click here for Jim Pipkin's "Primitive Mind" APD page

Click here for Jim Pipkin's "SlickMan" APD page

Click here for Jim Pipkin's "Fruit of the Yew" APD page

Click here for Jim Pipkin's "Time is Talking" APD page

Jim Pipkin
BMI ISSA
Booking phone 602-419-6178
Booking email: BigJim@jimpipkin.com


When I was a farm kid back in the 1960s, I used to milk our cow at 4:30am each day. I kept my guitar up in the barn loft so I could play a few minutes before milking, to warm up my hands. Cows hate cold hands.

For over forty since, after setting foot onstage at the 1974 Union Grove Fiddlers Convention in North Carolina, I have tried my best to bring a little warmth, beauty and humor into this often cold, ugly, humorless world. Not always with proper grace and humility, but it has been a sincere effort. Hope my hands are warm enough.

I have played my songs on hundreds of stages over the years, from The Palomino Club in Los Angeles to Nashville’s Bluebird Café.

At the same time I worked on farms and loading docks, in orchards, gold mines, and textile mills, even serving as a Gunner's Mate in the United States Navy.

The Pipkin family first landed at Jamestown as indentured servants in the 1670s, and we have been here, usually working for somebody else, ever since. We have a family website at pipkinusa.org

I was raised on a small farm out on Route 42 just west of Sanford, NC, where I inherited music from a whole passel of talented relatives.

My grandfather Clifton White Pipkin played roadhouses and corner bars all over Harnett, Lee, and Chatham Counties during the 30s and 40s. I inherited his mailorder Stella guitar when I was ten, and spent hours in the barn loft teaching myself how to play it.

I've appeared by invitation at the World Folk Showcase in Washington DC, and represented Arizona’s songwriting tradition as a guest of both the State of Arizona and the Folklore Society of Greater Washington at the FSGW’s annual Getaway at Camp Letts, Maryland.

My original songs have been recorded by Oklahoma's Sour Diesel Trainwreck, Kerrville Folk Festival co-founder Allen Damron, Arizona’s Joe Bethancourt, Portland's Haris Blackwood, and Baltimore's Sue Trainor, among others.

"Rollin' the Dice" released Saturday, March 2, 2013 at Higley Center for the Performing Arts, Gilbert, AZ.

Nominated for Arizona Governor's Arts Award by Southwest Folk Music Association