Jim Powell

I'm a songwriter and guitarist recording at the back of the house, not too far from the washer & dryer. My song productions range from simple voice and acoustic guitar to full-blown electric guitar, bass and drums “band” arrangements, with the occasional mandolin, bouzouki, keyboard, hand-percussion and cat noises thrown in to the mix. So far, I've been playing all the instruments myself, more out of necessity than anything else. I like the do-it-yourself ethic a lot - why pay a recording studio tens of thousands of dollars to record a CD that no one will hear, when you can record it at home for free? DIY worked for William Blake, didn't it? By the way, I don't wish to sound like I'm knocking recording studios - having learned about the recording process, I have tremendous respect and admiration for audio engineers. I'd love to show up at a good studio with a great band, and have someone else do all the hard work of recording, mixing and mastering. And have someone else pay for it, too. Writing the songs is the easy part... I think all of my songs work reasonably well with just a voice and an acoustic guitar - they are almost always written on acoustic guitar - so I've gone with the folk-rock genre, but I find the whole genre problem difficult to figure out. I have a terrible time classifying everything in my CD collection, let alone classifying myself. All you really need to know - I love to play the guitar and to write songs and I do the best that I can in front of a microphone.

I started playing the guitar when I was 10. I knew I wanted to be a songwriter when I was in 8th grade. I started writing songs when I was 19 and I haven't stopped writing them yet.

I have played live on and off over the years, usually in a supporting role. I've played at open-mics and small local gigs and even occasionally on the radio (I haven't played at KPIG yet - something I hope to do before I die). My favorite moment - I was backing up a friend at a gig and afterwards someone came up to me and told me that she had felt honored to have heard me play - it was as if I'd allowed her to sit in my living room and listen while I was playing music. I thought that that was one of the nicest musical complements I'd ever received. (And you also might gather from that comment that I'm not known for my dynamic stage presence...)

The big three are Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Richard Thompson. I'd never heard a song that I felt I should have written until I heard Neil Young - the "Rust Never Sleeps" album was the catalyst. Bob Dylan helped me to see how to get past a couple of verses and a chorus. And Richard Thompson put everything together for me - listen to "Can’t Win” on “Watching The Dark” to hear what is possible in a relatively straightforward rock song. Of course, there are plenty more influences, which are difficult to mention without descending into shameless name-dropping. So I won’t

Stringed instruments: Martin D16W, Fender Stratocaster, Gibson SG, Gretsch Electromatic Pro Jet, Peavy Fury bass, Breedlove Quartz mandolin, Muzikalia bouzouki. Percussion: Various drum machines and samples, Doumbek and various frame drums. Voice: my own.

This is a list of songs that manage to capture, through some combination of lyrics, melody, voice and instruments, what I love best about music. Each one of these songs stops the world for a few minutes, every time I hear one of them. I can't explain how this works, but there isn't really any need to explain... Ryan Adams - Oh My Sweet Carolina (Heartbreaker) Greg Brown - Lull It By (Milk Of The Moon) Richard Buckner - Lil Wallet Picture (devotion + doubt) Bob Dylan - Visions Of Johanna (The Bootleg Series Volume 4) Pete Morton - I'm In Love With Emily Dickinson (Flying An Unknown Flag) Over The Rhine - I Want You To Be My Love (Drunkard's Prayer) Son Volt - Windfall (Trace) Richard & Linda Thompson - Withered And Died (I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight) The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues (Fisherman's Blues) Gillian Welch - I Dream A Highway (Time The Revelator) & I Made A Lover’s Prayer (Soul Journey) Lucinda Williams - Ventura (World Without Tears) Neil Young - Winterlong (Decade)