As a singer songwriter (more on that at a later date) I have frequently been fascinated by the personal back-stories of songwriters whose work I really respect. I really enjoy reading books like Brian Wilson’s autobiography, mostly because I like finding out the stories behind his writing of songs like “Caroline, No” and “Warmth of the Sun”.
It’s particularly interesting for me when I discover an artist from the past whose work I was not aware of previously. Such is the case with Jim Ford who I just “discovered” this past weekend.
Friday night I was home doing work, and had the R&B classics channel on Fios on in the background for music. I heard this song, “Harry Hippie” that I had never heard before, and was instantly into it. It is wonderfully sung by the great Bobby Womack. But a quick Google search revealed that the writer was one Jim Ford.
Born in Kentucky in 1941, he spent time in New Orleans before making his way to L.A. and success in the music industry. Incredibly prolific, he was at the forefront of the musical “mixed marriage” that was country-soul-rock-funk; so popular in the early 1970s. Musical luminaries such as Nick Lowe (one of my personal all time favorites) called Jim Ford a big musical influence and a friend. Ford’s good friend Sly Stone called him “the funkiest white man I know”.
Ford released just one solo album in his life, the somewhat unsung “Harlan County” released in 1969 on White Whale Records. Listen to the title track, if nothing else, to see how Ford blended the various styles of American popular music with incredible finesse and excitement. His arrangement is complex and highly satisfying; if those horn sections alone don’t get you moving, you’re just too tired to move.
Apparently he recorded a second album, set to be released in 1970 on Capitol Records. However after some sort of dust up between Jim and some Capitol execs, they pulled the plug on the album. He was sent on his way with $20, 000 AND his master tapes, and specific instructions never to show up in the Capitol Records building ever again.
Although his career as a solo artist was indefinitely stalled, he maintained his rock star lifestyle by writing hits that were covered by many major artists like Womack and Aretha Franklin, who shined with a bangin’ version of Ford’s “Niki Hoeky”. He even wrote an entire album for the Temptations, “Wings of Love” released in 1976.
If you listen to Ford’s own solo tracks, you easily understand how both his songwriting and vocal style might have been influences to so many new artists of the time. Nick Lowe and the rest of the London pub rock scene guys were just getting started when Ford went over to London to lay some of his soul on the people. And of course Ford’s influence could be seen in all kinds of American southern rock artists.
Jim Ford claimed for years that he actually wrote or co-wrote the famous “Ode to Billy Joe”, which was singer Bobbie Gentry’s entrée to musical fame. Gentry has always denied that Ford was involved with writing the song. The two were a couple and living together when the song was written, and sometimes songwriters living or working in close proximity can develop nebulous and conflicting perceptions of their “boundaries.” Gentry later showed that the “Billy Joe” story was something she had written up as a short story before putting it in song form, and showed early drafts of the lyrics that had many more verses than ones she finally recorded. Places mentioned in the song like Choctaw Ridge and the Tallahatchie Bridge were real locations from her particular southern upbringing, not his. And Gentry did go on to have artistic success and hits on her own after her breakup with Ford, shortly after the song hit. But you can see some of Ford’s style in the song too. I believe it’s at least conceivable that while Gentry was in the process of turning her short story into the song, that Ford suggested some part of the melody line or chord structure. Was Jim hurt because she didn’t acknowledge his contribution to a huge hit, or just hurt because she left him? Only the two of them will ever know for sure.
According to this article about Jim on Aquariumdrunkard.com, after those initial years of living in the fast lane, came a story we’ve all heard before, namely: charismatic musical genius gets lost in the world and makes friends with drugs and drinking.
He cleaned up in the early 2000’s and found himself living in a trailer, in Mendocino County, California, strewn with myriad master tapes of tons of amazing Jim Ford songs that had been recorded and never released.
This is how and where he was somehow found, lounging in obscurity, by a Swedish music magazine publisher in 2006. Thus started the last, brief phase of his life, garnering one more bit of the spotlight for the road.
In 2007, a German indie label named Bear Family Records put out “Sounds of Our Times”, a compilation consisting of the entire “Harlan County Album” plus 15 of these unreleased tracks.
There were plans made for a subsequent album of even more of Ford’s demos (which was released in 2008 as “Point of No Return”) and old friend Nick Lowe was planning a big reunion concert for Jim in London.
But before the hoopla could ensue, it was over. Ford was found dead in his trailer on November 18th, 2007, at the age of 66. His neighbors were worried something was up when they noticed that he had left his Peugeot with the hood up parked in front, in the rain. I haven’t found anything about the cause of his death online.
RIP, Jim Ford. You’ve certainly made this girl love you, and darned if you didn’t make it “out of Harlan County.”
