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Jim
Lee - biography - Americana Plus
This war baby has led some sort of life!.... A country boy, born
into a working class country life in a remote farming community
in Sussex , England . He had a start in life few would have survived......Taken
into care at 4yrs old,by the time he was 9 he'd had 10 homes and
11 schools.
His has been a life of music with a distinctive voice and folk/country
style which was later to find a home during his travels in the America.
He took his first steps towards a music career in the embryonic
London folk scene , existing by day in a Cricklewood squat and emerging
by night alongside the passionate new wave of British acoustic aristocracy
- Alex Cambell , Roy Harper , Jerry Lochran , Cliff Aunger , Johnny
Silvo , Derek Brimstone, Ralph McTell, Ron Geesin et al . In that
hallowed company he cut his performing teeth playing for beer and
bed in the capitals back street blues , booze and acoustic dens
.
His early life was hard by any standards..... At 14 he ran away
to join the Royal Navy and was sent , with 2000 other boys, to the
notorious HMS Ganges training establishment at Shotly Mill where
a harsh regime held sway . He had the misfortune to be placed under
the care of two particularly brutal and drunken instructors who's
continual bullying and abuse proved too much for this emerging free
spirit , he fought back and deserted on numerous occasions. Among
his many punishments, he suffered 'cuts' , a particularly brutal
form of Naval punishment.... The next 6 yrs passed with regular.Naval
detentions, exhausting punishments, solitary confinements, ending
with a twelve month sentence in the infamous HMP Corradino , Malta.
He was subsequently dismissed from the service in Dec 1961 and returned
to civilian life.
Jimmy's Father was ' called up ' in 1942 and was to serve the next
4 years in one of the most bitter campaigns of WW2 as part of the
' Forgotten Army' , in the jungles of Northern Burma..... he would
not return to England until Sept 1946 .
During that long absense things went ' wrong ' for his Mother. Destitute,
and shunned by her family, struggling to survive with her four children
she placed her ' youngest ' on a train with a note attached.. '
please take care of me, my name is John'...She was never to see
him again.......( Jimmy was to search for,and find him 42 yrs later
)
Jimmy and his elder brother,suffering from neglect and malnutrition,
were taken into ' care '. and the nightmare of ' childhood ruin
' began.
As an infant,dominated by hardship and loneliness, music became
a critical stone in the man. When singing in school and church choirs,
he discovered that displays of emotion were not seen as a sign of
weakness so music and his abiding faith were to become, and still
are, his salvation .
Following on from his days in London, Jimmy had to flee to the West
of Ireland to escape a high court warrant, where he remained for
2 yrs untill the ' Troubles' began.; Back in the day, Bernadette
Devlin was recruiting for the emerging operational IRA, and Jim's
failure to read the danger signs was placed under suspicion by the
Republican powerbrokers.
His casual, confident,' don't give a damn ' attitude, dubious UK
sevice background and ability to look after himself raised a few
local eyebrows, and he was summarily set up fo a fall. A late night
pull from the local Guadia and a quiet word in the wrong ear and
Jim , by the skin of his teeth ,was on the next boat back to England
Back home , his impassioned self defense in the high court saw his
case dismissed and Jim out and about footloose and fancy free !
A successful business followed with jet set salaries, champagne
lifre style , birds, booze and flash lodgings were all part of the
game. Predictably, he hated it, and after a while got out. Money
was no substitute for music !.
So, from the early seventies it was the road , the road and even
more road, and Jimmys unique interpretation of folk and country
were being blended together into what we now know as ' Americana
' .
Typicaliy he was hounded out of some folk clubs as a ' country music
heretic ' and was only slightly less welcome in the country venues
, where his music was reviled as '' effing folk/country--- get off
! '' Remember Dylan's '' Judas anyone ?'' ... Yep , there was no
pleasing anyone back then , his lack of support for his vision wasn't
too good for the bank balance either spawned Jimmy's favoured expression
' I could get everything I owned into a suit case, only I didn't
have a suitcase '
.
He returned to his PR business, got married, AND ...the money rolled
in ,... OK, it didn't all stick, but the statistics read well, nice
house, country lifestyle, huntin' shootin' n fishin'. a comfortable
US country lifestyle ( check it out in Cash's biography! ).
Those were truly very happy days , beautiful wife , geogeous daughter
by his first marriage ,two strapping handsome,and very amusing,
sons.. Life was perfect and full of fun ......but , as ever, the
call of the wild was strong .
And so his love affair with 'Americana' continued and over the next
few years, drew him time and time again to play and perform in his
spiritual home in the bars, beer joints and ' honkytonks' of the
American Mid West . They really loved his distinctive voice and
his unholy fusion of contry/folk .
The discovery of the ' 'White Mansions' album, which hit him ' like
a hammer blow ' and gave him the focus he'd always wanted but never
found. Creative meetings with Derek Green (head of A&M), Glynn
Johns (Beatles and Stones producer) and Mansions writer Paul Kennerley
(Emmylou's other half) followed and led to jim and his band taking
the album to the States as a complete show, where he toured it for
a year , ending with a four month stint in Nashville. His first
single from the project 'Confederate Money' hit the ground running
in the southern States and then crashed the Billboard Charts . Unfortunately
Jim's Nashville publishers, holding a six figure cheque for his
first royalties, disappeared overnight and Jim's career was stalled
right out of the blocks,
Shell-shocked Jim did one more US gig, but his heart was gone. He
left for England where his final gig was topping the bill at Wembley
in Mervyn Conn's fabled Country Music Festival.
One last show and then he was gone......
For the second time in his life Jim turned his back on a promising
music career and now sought success and recognition in the commercial
world - one with a difference - making life fun !
He bought a forest near his home town and 'sat in it'. Over the
years he and his family were to use there considerable skills to
create a small but successful sporting estate , entertaining 'Blue
chip' companies with riding, shooting and fishing .But he missed
the music . The old shoot lodge was the perfect music venue so he
started the Blue Coconut Music Club. We never advertised but the
list of audience and performers grew steadily by word of mouth..
. It's a wonderful place, the rules are quite simple ... You Play....
We Listen.... A unique warm and friendly place
developed and you really were transported to that special place
that is within all of us but so difficult to find... and ANYONE
who was in the least ' vexatious to the spirit' was unceremoniously
shown ' the door'.
Quietly, and without fuss, over the last 15 years the Blue coconut
club has provided music and magic for all playing host to such luminaries
as Tom Paxton, Ralph McTell, The Pretty Things, Richard O'brien
(rocky horror) ,Carolyn Hester (Dylan's muse and harmony partner)
and many others.matched with the worlds widest range of patrons,
Lords, Ladies,Villains, Judges. Tramps, The Floyd, Genesis, the
good the great and the damned--- they all have the Coconut in common.
This strange club, run by this interesting man, levels out all,
and anonymity is assured-- Hell even FINDING the place needs a team
of Sherpa's !... It sure ain't on any map !.
So now, with 'Americana' finally on the UK map Jimmy has recreated
White Mansions and is taking it out on the road once more to perform
everywhere and anywhere , even perhaps back to the Mid West and
the heartland of American.roots music that first coined the phrase
and stirred the passion.
Lee's Company newly formed to play White Mansions and similar music
is the result of a ' driven tough old nut' who is now easier to
make cry than a new born baby,
The time has now come to understand where the emotion in this man
and his music comes from..... Jimmy lee has made ' Americana ' his
country and ' White Mansions ' his home.
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