Biography

"A Hand Full Of Songs" is Jim's 22nd full length album of music.
All songs copyright Jim Page, Whid-Isle Music, BMI
Recorded April 11, 12, 13, 2017, at Studio Litho, Seattle WA
Engineered by Floyd Reitsma
Mixed by Floyd Reitsma at Garey Shelton Studios, May 2 and 3
produced by Jim Page

All songs copyright Jim Page, Whid-Isle Music, BMI
except Shady Grove, traditional

Jim Page – acoustic guitar and vocal
Orville Johnson – dobro, acoustic & electric guitar, mandolin, and electric bass
Mark Ettinger – acoustic bass
Jon Parry – fiddle
Grant Dermody – harmonica
Barry Sless – acoustic guitar

"This record happened because the timing was right. I had the songs and the players and everybody was into it. Orville Johnson, my long time musical cohort, suggested Studio Litho - a wonderful tone factory in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. He also suggested the engineer, Floyd Reitsma, who had recorded Dave Matthews and Pearl Jam in that same room. The dates were booked and everything was set - and then Trump got elected and everything changed. I wrote a couple of songs and rearranged a couple of others. An intensity entered the mix that hadn't been there before. The music rose to the occasion."


The Songs

01. Questions and Answers (3:31)
About finding the answers that lead to other questions, and also about being with the same person for a long time and how good that is.

02. Put It Down (5:22)
Coming up to the edge of violence and backing off, better to let it go. A city view out the 2nd floor window.

03. Landlord (5:03)
Because they have too much power, and so many of us have to struggle too hard just to get by.

04. 338 Dollars Behind (2:46)
The bad winter of 2017 in Portland , OR. She was evicted. She owed $338.

05. Jim's Song (6:19)
Jim was a Vietnam veteran who saved his sanity, paid the rent, and put the kids through school by singing on the street in Seattle. He was a busker, and a damn good one. This is his story.

06. As the Wheel Spins (4:16)
How the right person can come along when you least expect it and how it all seems so heroic.

07. Nothing Rhymes With Orange (3:30)
The election of Donald Trump was a complete disconnect.

08. Collateral Damage (5:09)
Inspired by the form of Woody Guthrie's "Deportees" this is a song about the dehumanization of civilians in war time.

09. Masters Of Lies (3:13)
Inspired by the idea of Bob Dylan's "Masters Of War" this song calls to the ones who profit from and enable the Trump machine.

10. Shadow In the Room (4:34)
That one thing we all avoid, without which we would be so much better off.

11. My Old Home Town (4:44)
The sweet loss of leaving home - when you did, when your friends did, and how you had to.

12. Same Train Different Track (3:42)
For Merle Haggard, thanks for all the great music.

13. Shady Grove (3:33)
A slight rewrite of a great classic from the river of song that we all swim in.


The Biography

Jim Page was born in California in 1949 and grew up into the 1960’s in the San Francisco Bay Area. The music and artistic experimentation of those days left a lasting impression on him. The politics and social awareness was a part of everything that was going on and it has stayed that way in Jim’s music ever since.

Jim got his start in the bars and coffee houses of the lower Bay Area in 1966. On New Years day of 1970 he headed to New York City by thumb, arriving one frozen day in January with a broken fleece lined jacked and 34 cents in his pocket. He soon borrowed a guitar and started hitting the clubs of Greenwich Village, sometimes playing as many as three in the same night. But the scene had gone and the Village a shadow of it’s former self. A year later he headed to Seattle.

The last folk club in Seattle closed soon after he arrived and Jim took the whole town to be his stage. Wherever there were people he would play: the streets, the college campus, the bus station, the bars, the city council meetings. One day he walked into the TV station and said “I’ve got a song you should put on the news,” and they did. Including the streets, the campus, the cocktail bars, and the rock and roll clubs Jim would play from 11 in the morning to 2 the next morning, with time out only for traveling across town and eating. He would often playing 5 clubs a night. In 1974, after being threatened with arrest, Jim took on the Seattle city government and legalized street performing. It was a landmark case and Seattle is now a famous city for buskers of all styles.

In 1975 Jim recorded his first album of original music, a vinyl LP called “A Shot Of The Usual,” released on his own label. Two other albums followed in rapid succession.

In 1977 Jim journeyed to the UK and performed at the Cambridge Folk Festival. The response was instant and overwhelming and he walked away with a feature in the national music press, two booking agents, and a European tour for the next year. He was off and running and spent the next 6 years almost constantly on the road. He recorded two albums for a Swedish label called Nacksving and one for WEA Ireland. It was in Ireland that Christy Moore first heard Jim’s song “Hiroshima Nagasaki Russian Roulette,” and made it a permanent part of his repertoire. When Christy formed the great Irish band The Moving Hearts “Hiroshima” was their first single and a center piece to their shows.

Jim returned to the States in ’83 and began reestablishing himself as a solo artist and as a player in the northwest music scene. He experimented with duos, trios and more. In ’85 he recorded an album in Portland, OR, produced by the great Irish musician Micheal O Domhnaill. Back in Seattle he began to experiment with electric music. 1988 saw the creation of the legendary band Zero Tolerance, named after George Bush’s draconian anti drug campaign. It was a four piece rock and roll band with the exception that the music was focused on the songs and not on the dance. They made one recording and broke up, as rock bands often do, leading Jim to more experimentation, this time with the internationally famous spoon player Artis the Spoonman who was himself the subject of a Grammy award winning song by Seattle grunge rockers Soundgarden. It’s a small musical world.

Fast forward to the 21st century and Jim is busy with multiple projects in simultaneous array – constant solo performance, plus various ensemble configurations, leading to more albums. Jim was one of the founders of the Pike market performers Guild, Seattle’s first street performers union. They organized and ran the first and only Busker Festival to be operated entirely by buskers, and he again petitioned the City Council, this time to created Buskers Week. Another Seattle first! In 2005 Jim was invited to Taiwan for the first time, again that next year. And in 2007 Jim was included in an all star cast of the “50 Most Influential Musicians In Seattle History,” a position shared with Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana.

To date. Jim’s songs have been covered by The Doobie Brothers, Christy Moore, The Moving Hearts, Dick Gaughan, Roy Bailey, David Soul, Leftover Salmon, Michael Hedges, Joanne Rand, and Casey Neal. He has received awards from Artist Trust and Jack Straw Productions. His music has been included on many compilations, including the Grammy Nominated “Best Of Broadside.”

As of this writing Jim continues to write and to perform and to experiment with form and ensemble, and his songs continue to be pertinent and expressive of our times. To quote the late Utah Phillips: “If you’re ever going to get the message, this is the messenger to get it from.”