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MP3 Jim Bowers - No Apology
16 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Country Folk, FOLK: Political
Details:
NO APOLOGY is the latest CD from contemporary songwriting balladeer Jim Bowers. From the innovative opening “Audio Liner Notes” to the autobiographical “50 Years Old and Still Playin’ for Tips” to the defiance in the title track “No Apology” to the haunting remorse in “Should Have Loved You Better,” and culminating in the loss of political idealism in “Whores for the Cause,” NO APOLOGY is a powerful lyrical journey through a host of human emotions and conditions that engages, challenges, and confronts you as you listen to it.
A Short Biography:
Jim Bowers grew up in the late 1960s and 1970s as the son of Depression Era parents whose working class roots and values are evident in Jim’s songs. From his mother, who had a fiery attitude about the things in which she believed, Jim leaned the importance of social consciousness, a commitment to help others, and to stand up for the truth. He began to learn these things once he was old enough to pick up a snow shovel and push a lawn mower as his mother sent him off to shovel the snow and cut the grass of their elderly neighbors instructing him not to accept any money from them.
From his father, a union welder for 50 years, Jim learned about the plight of the working man, the pain of lay-offs, and how difficult the struggle to get ahead, hell, to just stay even, really is. Sometimes working three jobs, never taking a real vacation, and hitch-hiking to get by when his car broke down, Jim''s father kept a roof over his family’s head and food on the table, even though sometimes it was just pancakes for supper.
Proud his parents were. From their pride, Jim leaned never to apologize about the people from where he came or the life he led. This pride and defiance is given voice in the title track of his latest CD when he sings: “I make no apology about the people from where I came. I proudly stand before you as my mother’s youngest child. My neck is still blue collar. I bleed union when I’m cut. And when all is said and done, I’m still just a welder’s son.”
Though not well-off, Jim’s parents gave him many valuable things, but most were not material. The most valuable and lasting was music. Not musically inclined themselves, they actively encouraged his interest in music as a child. They bought him his first two guitars---a little Harmony Stella when he was around 10 years old and on which he took his first guitar lessons and a red Yamaha electric guitar several years later that was bought with his father’s bonus check that probably should have gone to pay bills instead. (Jim has kept both of those guitars to this very day.) They also paid for his guitar lessons--$2.50 a week that was often hard to come up with. But most importantly, his parents, particularly his mother, listened to him play and sing. They were his first and best audience.
For years as a solo performer and in small groups, Jim performed and interpreted the songs of other songwriters such as Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Gordon Lightfoot, John Prine, Harry Chapin, Jimmy Buffet, and Mike Nesmith. He dabbled in songwriting as a teen and in his early 20s, producing what he now calls “poor, poor, pitiful me songs.” Jim seriously returned to songwriting in 2000, bringing a unique background and skill set to the craft including being a college professor, a published author or editor of five books, a political analyst and commentator for western New York media outlets, and a now former city-wide elected official in his adopted hometown of Rochester, NY. It is not surprising then given these tools in his musical toolbox that Jim’s songs appeal to both emotions and intellect. Give his songs a listen and like those who have heard his live performances, you will find that Jim Bowers is a songwriter with attitude who has something to say and give.
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