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| JIM
BYRNES |
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Starting piano at age five, by age thirteen, Jim was singing and playing blues guitar. His first professional gig was in the summer of 1964. Over the years, he has had the great good fortune to appear with a virtual who’s who of blues history. From Furry Lewis and Henry Townsend to Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Albert Collins, Taj Mahal, Robert Cray and so many others, Jim has been on the blues highway for 40 years. Byrnes moved to Vancouver, BC in the mid-70s after years of drifting, working odd jobs and playing music. In 1981 he put together a band that became a staple of the local music scene. In 1986 the Jim Byrnes Band played 300 nights. Jim Byrnes’ fame as an actor has grown immeasurably from his too-numerous-to-mention TV roles, with highlights including Lifeguard in the CBS series Wiseguy, worldwide success in Highlander, and his nationally broadcast variety show, The Jim Byrnes Show. As for highlights in his musical career, Jim mentions “Sittin’ down in a room with Muddy Waters, just him and me, and he showed me a couple of licks on his guitar.” His greatest musical moment was the first time he saw Howlin’ Wolf. “I was devastated. I was 17. Who could take the Rolling Stones seriously after watching Howlin’ Wolf down on his knees singing Little Red Rooster?” Jim has proven that a serious car accident in 1972 has done anything but hinder him. Despite two swipes with death and some pretty hard knocks, Byrnes has still managed to rack up an enviable string of credits, both on and off-screen. Jim’s first love, however, is the blues. His evocative, smoky vocals are found in a truth that doesn’t come overnight. During the 80s, the Jim Byrnes Band released “Burnin’” on Polydor, followed in 1987 with “I’ve Turned My Nights into Days” and 1995’s Juno-Award winning “That River” on Stony Plain. February 2004 saw the release of Jim’s project “Fresh Horses” on Black Hen Music. The recording was the result of a musical meeting between Jim and Steve Dawson (of Zubot & Dawson). Jim and Steve realized they shared common tastes in music and realized that a collaboration between Jim and the Zubot & Dawson band would be a refreshing and exciting project. In Jim’s words, “Early bluesmen were really ‘songsters’ who interspersed their blues with spirituals, popular music, folk songs, anything to get the crowd to take note, and I suppose that’s how I cast myself when I began my career. In the spring of 2003, Steve Dawson approached me about the possibility of a collaboration and I leapt at the opportunity to create a musical dialogue with the very finest players of a whole new generation; sort of fathers and sons, you know? It’s been a long, hard road and so ‘Yahoo, thank the Lord’, I thought, ‘fresh horses’.” My Walking Stick (Released 2009) Introducing the latest blood and guts, behind your knees, love, life, death, and after life release from the legendary multi Juno Award winning blues and roots artist Jim Byrnes. This is the third album from Jim in five years since he hooked up with one of North America’s most critically acclaimed roots music producers, Steve Dawson. Byrnes and Dawson put together another world class band and 'My Walking Stick' finds them building on the blues roots of 2004’s Fresh Horses and 2006’s gospel tinged Juno Award winning House Of Refuge as they continue exploring gospel, blues, rockabilly, country, and once again pull it all together in an original and unique way. “You know, since I first got in cahoots with Steve I knew I'd found a great ally in genre bending and eliminating the pigeon holes often foisted on musical creativity”, says Byrnes. “I've been at this professionally for more than 40 years and I really feel that I'm only now discovering my true voice.” The opening track “Ol’ Rattler” digs in and never lets go and the same can be said for the entire album. Moving through the border radio groove of the title track, to the 50’s vibe of “Lookin For A Love” and a slow burning version of The Band’s “Ophelia”, these are tales of wanderers (“Three Shots”), lost souls (“Drown In My Own Tears”), love (“Living Off The Love You Give Me”), death (“What Are They Doing In Heaven Today”), and redemption (“One Life”). Byrnes explains further. “John Hammond tells how in talking to Muddy Waters he asked about why he wanted to become a professional entertainer and, sure, there were the references to influences; Robert Johnson, Son House, The Mississippi Sheiks, Big Bill Broonzy, but his muse turned out to be GENE AUTRY! And so on this recording we've gone all over the map with some originals, some obscure covers of all sorts, a Robbie Robertson composition, retelling the stories of John Henry and Stagger Lee in different settings, all sorts of fun stuff with some of the best damn players in the world.” Those players are Keith Lowe on bass (Bill Frisell, Fiona Apple), Chris Gestrin on keyboards (K-OS, Randy Bachman), Jesse Zubot (Zubot and Dawson, Hawksley Workman), drummers Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits, John Hammond, Mavis Staples) and Matt Chamberlain (Edie Brickell, David Bowie) , critically acclaimed Vancouver based gospel trio The Sojourners, and of course Steve Dawson and Jim Byrnes. Jim Byrnes plays 150 dates a year in North America and Europe. He will continue to bring his music to stages all over the world and this time he will be bringing his “Walking Stick”. Who could ask for more than that? Everywhere West (Released 2010) Some music simply can’t be played in the background. The first note catches you as the rest of the world melts away and you’ve got no choice but to stop what you were doing and listen. Really listen. Jim Byrnes’ new album, Everywhere West catches you that way. Listen closely and you can hear the wind blowing through the floorboards of long abandoned roadhouses. Wind that lifts up the dust ground down by the stomping feet of Saturday night dancers hurting, forgetting and testifying while Jimmy Reed hollered down the devil and ghosts of done me wrong romance. Open the door a little wider and some of that dust gets down your throat and all of that trapped passion and good time hurting becomes a part of you – just like the music of Jim Byrnes does. For more than thirty years, Jim Byrnes has woven roots so deeply into the Northern Blues scene that it’s difficult to remember that this quintessentially Canadian icon was raised in St. Louis and that his instantly recognizable gruff as sandpaper, sweet as honey voice was not always an essential part of the country’s musical landscape. Everywhere West marks the fourth collaboration between Byrnes and Juno award winning musician and producer, Steve Dawson. Fans of their previous work can rest assured that the intricate acoustic melodies, dirty blues guitar, funky organ and passionate interplay that we’ve come to expect when the two men get together in the same room are here in spades. If anything, the conversation goes a little deeper this time around and the playing is more assured and trusting than it’s ever been before. Listening back to some of the tracks from the album, it’s obvious that Byrnes is thrilled with the results. “I’m not one of those guys who loves the studio. I love live performance and being out in the world, and I’ve always found the technical aspect of the studio intimidating and a little bit cold. But, with Steve, it’s so much fun making a record. It’s just a bunch of guys sitting together and playing the music we love – with the tapes rolling.” As we’ve come to expect, the musicians who support Byrnes on this effort have been selected from the country’s best with Dawson studio regulars Keith Lowe and Geoff Hicks laying down a rock solid rhythm section while Jeanne Tolmie offers her usual heavenly back up vocals. Special guest Keith Bennett turns in some tasty harmonica parts while Canadian fiddle and horn legend, Daniel Lapp blesses listeners with some absolutely inspired performances throughout the album. Whether Byrnes is singing a Mississippi Sheiks chestnut like “Bootlegger’s Blues” or wailing his way through a stripped down banjo driven version of Bobby Bland’s “Yield Not To Temptation”, he effortlessly inhabits every syllable and corner of this music. Testifying with a poise and authority that few can muster, he adds weight and depth to a Dave Van Ronk inspired take of “He Was a Friend of Mine”. Defined by its yearning steel guitar line, Byrnes gives new life to old pain, showing that the blues can still cut like a razor when done right. Those who think that the world doesn’t need any more done me wrong songs only need to listen to Byrne’s worried to death version of Jimmy Reed’s “Take Out Some Insurance On Me” to realize how wrong they were, while a hip shaking good time version of Memphis Slim’s “No Mail Blues” reminds listeners that hurting or not, the blues has always been first and foremost about entertainment. Three Byrnes originals round out the album – “Hot As A Pistol” – a passionate straight up blues rave, “Storm Warning” – a first take recording with some hot trumpet served up by Daniel Lapp and finally, “Me and Piney Brown” – a lovely ‘autobiographical dream tune’ that evokes an imaginary journey to Kansas City in 1938. As Jim writes in his liner notes, Everywhere West is dedicated to ‘those who came before’, but this music doesn’t belong in a museum. Byrnes is a thoroughly modern bluesman who honours the past, but isn’t stuck there. The sounds and emotions he conjures are anchored somewhere beyond this moment, in timelessness with the understanding that truth is truth – whether glimpsed out the window of a speeding 1963 Valiant or delivered as an instant message to your iPhone. As Byrnes notes, “Deep down, blues is an acceptance of life. You stand in front of life and life says, ‘that’s the way it is baby’. To play the blues, you take all the bullshit that’s been piling up and you channel it through your guitar and voice. You let the pain go and turn it into a good feeling. That’s the blues – pure and simple.” Pure and simple doesn’t get any better than this. When you hear Jim Byrnes pour his whole soul into singing a line as simple as ‘One sunny day, I’ll be home to stay’, you’ll instantly know that this is the kind of music you’re going to want to listen to forever – long after all other moods and fashions have faded away – and that sometimes time is on our side, and that nearly fifty years after first wondering ‘how blue can you get?’, Jim Byrnes has found his voice and is just hitting his stride. “The repertoire, mostly blues traditionals but with three Byrnes originals and a song by Dawson, sounds like what you might hear at a musical get-together in a Mississippi small town. Singing the traditional Bootlegger's Blues, performed as a hoedown swing tune, Byrnes's voice sounds like that of a backwoods moonshiner. He evokes another part of the American South with Robert Johnson's From Four Until Late, which moves like a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade song.” - The Vancouver Sun
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