My Music

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I first began writing songs In my teens through early twenties. It was my "poor-poor pitiful me" stage. I buried those songs many years ago in a quite private ceremony. 

I didn't return to songwriting until the late 1990s & early 2000s when I was bored as an academic and on sabbatical. Not liking the original project I proposed for the sabbatical, I decided instead to apply the writing skills and discipline I developed in authoring articles and books to the craft of songwriting. The transference of my academic writing skills worked.  Lyric writing fueled my creative side (my heart) while coming up with more than three-chord melodies fed my intellect (my head). Between 2002 & 2013 I recorded the three CDs of all original songs. 

I haven't written many new songs since 2013 because of some career choices I made and the six years spent researching and writing my most recent book That Man in the Gold Lamé Suit: Phil Ochs's Search for Self. Nevertheless, I still consider myself to be one.  When I am songwriting, who do I write like? I write like myself. But the three biggest influences on my songwriting are Kris Kristofferson, Gordon Lightfoot, and Michael Nesmith. Collectively they feed my head, my heart, and my whimsy. 

You can listen to Tequila Lips and my other two CDs on my Spotify page. 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0Ozkguel7TTmIwl1495gEu

All three of my CDs can also be found on Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/artist/jim-bowers/130205730

You can purchase MP3 downloads of the songs on Tequila Lips on Amazon at

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001OSBIV2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=438Y93YVJ23J&keywords=Jim+Bowers+Tequila+Lips&qid=1693337190&sprefix=jim+bowers+tequila+lips%2Caps%2C116&sr=8-1

Tequila Lips was my first CD.  Recorded live in studio in 2001 & 2002, it is a stripped down CD of just me on vocals & guitar; Steve Piper, a good friend of mine, on lead acoustic & electric guitar; and various musicians on electric bass. That the way I wanted it--simple and live.  

The 13 tracks on Tequila Lips consist of some of my favorite early songs that I still play in live performance, songs such as "Grampa Was a Miner" which is a true story about my grandfather and the black lung disease he contracted from years in the coal mines. Then there is "Everybody Called Him Harlan" about the man who taught me how to play guitar and gave me a gift that has filled my life.  As I say in the song, "Harlan was my hero, Harlan was my friend."

Other favorites include "Into My Past She Strays," which is more or less about a truly free-spirited young  woman I knew in my late teens. She was an older woman--one whole year older.  But what a difference that year made.  As I say in the song, "She was no stranger to the ways of the word.  I was a boy so long lost in the woods." 

Lastly there is "After All These Years" which I wrote for my wife at the time of our fifteenth wedding anniversary. What I said then is still true today, she's "always been the better part of me."

You can listen to No Apology and my other two CDs on my Spotify page. 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0Ozkguel7TTmIwl1495gEu. 

All three of my CDs can also be found on Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/artist/jim-bowers/130205730

You can purchase MP3 downloads of the songs on No Apology on Amazon at

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QQZ346/ref=sr_1_3?crid=MO29SGN9PS4C&keywords=Jim+Bowers+No+Apology&qid=1693336968&sprefix=jim+bowers+no+apology%2Caps%2C116&sr=8-3

Released in 2006, No Apology is my second CD.  It consists of 16 tracks. Unlike Tequila Lips, this CD has fuller instrumentation, pretty much what you might expect from an album cover picturing a guy in a cowboy hat and studded western leather jacket--drums, harmonica, fiddle, electric guitar, some horns to get a "Ring of Fire" effect on one song. But alas there is no pedal steel guitar.

The title track reflects my basic life philosophy that you ought not ever apologize for from where you came or the life choices you make with one exception. If you intentionally or unintentionally hurt someone, you must damn well be prepared to say that you are sorry and suffer the consequences.  I learned this firsthand. I've not always a nice person. One of my favorite lines from the song is "I've had my share of triumph, traded some for failure to be fair." 

Another favorite from the CD is "50 Years Old, and Still Playing for Tips." It's autobiographical, and yes, I wrote it when I was 50 on a guitar I bought to celebrate that milestone. The song captures why so many of us singer-songwriters keep at it: "But it's not for the money, but to fill the hole in your soul. It's a curse and a blessing made of wood and 6 strings.  It's fiction and fact in the same melody."  

Among the remaining tracks are "Lady Tattoo" which was inspired by a beautiful rendition of a woman's face that my hair stylist at the time had on her shoulder; and "Hey Darlena" which is about a stripper/exotic dancer, the men who watch her, and why she is dancing. 

One more song I want to note is "I Should Have Loved You Better." It is my effort to figure out the loss my father felt when his wife of 50 years and my mother died. At least from what I saw, it was far from being a great marriage. But her passing was the only time I ever saw him cry, and that included the time a two ton piece of steel that he was welding slipped and nearly severed his hand from his wrist.  Being of the WWII generation he never could put his emotions or pain into words, so I tried to do it for him.  I don't know if he ever listened to the song.  If he did he never told me. 

You can listen to Seeking Calm Waters and my other two CDs on my Spotify page. 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0Ozkguel7TTmIwl1495gEu

All three of my  CDs can also be found on Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/artist/jim-bowers/130205730

You can purchase MP3 downloads of the songs on Seeking Calm Waters on Amazon at

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DNK1K2Q/ref=sr_1_4?crid=QE9E3RR7695D&keywords=Jim+Bowers+in+music&marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&qid=1693336558&sprefix=jim+bowers+in+music%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-4&trackAsin=B00DNK1K2Q

Seeking Calm Waters was released in 2013.  It's my third CD and my favorite because it has the most of me in it. Here's what I mean. On Tequila Lips I just recorded my tracks and let John Dady who was the producer/sound engineer do everything else. On No Apology, I thought I was co-producing in that I was in the engineers booth with John for 90 percent of the recording. I might tell one of the musicians playing on the track, "Hey, Joe. I hear a 'dirty banjo' on this. Does that make sense to you." When we were mixing it, I sat beside John as he turned the dials and would then ask me "How does that sound to you, Jim?" In reality, John, as a friend, was humoring me, and he is much more the sole producer of No Apology than I am the co-producer.

But on Seeking Calm Waters, along with my co-producer and partner in crime, Steve Piper, we mixed every note on every track. I got very good at deciding where the sounds should go, how they should be layered, how much to pan to the left, how much to pan to the right, what level of reverb and the like. 

Seeking Calm Waters is also my most musically creative CD. It uses different instruments strategically to enhance all the songs.  From pedal steel guitar to slide guitar to a ukulele to Conga drums, Shekere, & triangles, to the saxophone, trumpet, & flugelhorn,  Seeking Calm Waters is richly textured. 

One of the smartest moves I made was to bring in a second vocalist. Diana Palotas is a true songbird. I invited her in to sing on one track and kept her around for 7 more. Like the instrumentation for the CD, I used Diana's voice to augment the emotions of the songs. 

A decade after its release, I'm still enamored with the songs on it. "All About the Song" conveys that everything that surrounds a song is less important than the song itself.  The hook is a line that probably could never be played on radio.  It goes "It's all about the song boy and that's the God damn truth." The track is just my vocals & guitar, Jimmy "Steel" Duvall on pedal steel guitar, and Dana Fine on bass. 

"It Is What It Is" is a tribute song to a friend of mine, Steve Minarik, who passed away suddenly.  "It Is What It Is" was his favorite phrase.  On Good Friday we had lunch and on Easter Sunday I got an email from a mutual friend telling me Steve had passed away.   

"White Linen" may be my favorite song I ever wrote. It reflects both a life crisis and a love story of sorts. Bill Tiberio plays tenor sax on the songs.  The only instruction I gave Bill was to play the sax as if he was singing a duet with me. He nailed on the first take, and the result is a warm jazz feel. 

The last song on the CD is "The Freedom in the Soul." It my tribute song to Kris Kristofferson. Many of the lyrics come from or touch upon various songs he wrote over his long career.  It's a stripped down arrangement of just me and my guitar.

I was fortunate to briefly meet Kristofferson backstage at one of his concerts in April 2019. At 83, his blue eyes were still so intense they could see right into someone's heart. He didn't really say much, but I we had a real moment between us when I shared with him how I taught about him, his politics, his burden of freedom in a course I offered on music and politics. The smile that spread across his face was one of the warmest and biggest I'd ever seen.  He is in every sense of the word the Pilgrim about whom he once wrote.  Meeting him was also the only thing on my bucket list.