Steve James is an American folk blues musician. A multi-instrumentalist

Multi-instrumentalist

A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...

, singer, and songwriter, James operates in the fields of acoustic and folk blues. Without the benefit of promotion from a major record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

, James has secured his fan

Fan (person)

A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...

 base from consistent touring.

Biography

James plays a National steel guitar

Steel guitar

Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...

, mandolin

Mandolin

A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

, and the banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

, having become fixated, as an adolescent

Adolescence

Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...

, on blues music. As a teenager in New York City, James listened to his father's record

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

 collection, which included recordings

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 from Lead Belly, Josh White

Josh White

Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....

, and Meade "Lux" Lewis. Following relocation to Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, he met both Sam McGee

McGee Brothers

The McGee Brothers were an American old-time performing duo consisting of brothers Sam McGee and Kirk McGee . Sam typically played guitar and Kirk usually played banjo or fiddle, although they were both proficient in multiple string instruments...

 and Furry Lewis

Furry Lewis

Furry Lewis was an American country blues guitarist and songwriter from Memphis, Tennessee. Lewis was one of the first of the old-time blues musicians of the 1920s to be brought out of retirement, and given a new lease of recording life, by the folk blues revival of the 1960s.-Life and...

. In 1977, he moved to San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio, Texas

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...

, and played along with various musicians including Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley

Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...

, John P. Hammond

John P. Hammond

John Paul Hammond is an American blues singer and guitarist. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as "John Hammond, Jr.".-Background:...

 and Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....

.

James' earliest recordings were Two Track Mind (1993), American Primitive (1994), and Art & Grit (1996). Bob Brozman

Bob Brozman

Bob Brozman is an American guitarist and ethnomusicologist.He has performed in a number of styles such as Gypsy jazz, calypso, Blues, ragtime, Hawaiian and Caribbean music. Brozman has also collaborated with musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds such as India, Africa, Japan, Papua New Guinea...

 played some slide guitar

Slide guitar

Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...

 on Art & Grit, and Danny Barnes

Danny Barnes

Danny Barnes is a banjo and guitar player whose music is influenced by country, jazz and punk. Born in Temple, Texas and raised in Belton, Barnes was exposed to music at a young age: he recalls picking up a love of country and bluegrass from his father and grandmother, Delta blues from one brother...

 has appeared on a number of James' recordings.

In 2000 the Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 based, Burnside Records label, issued Boom Chang. Three years later Burnside released, Fast Texas, where James was accompanied by Cindy Cashdollar

Cindy Cashdollar

Cindy Cashdollar is a steel guitar and Dobro artist. She grew up in Woodstock, New York where she perfected her skills by playing with bluegrass musician John Herald, blues musician Paul Butterfield, and Levon Helm and Rick Danko of The Band.Cashdollar received five Grammy awards while playing...

 on steel and dobro

Dobro

Dobro is a registered trademark, now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar.The name has a long and involved history, interwoven with that of the resonator guitar...

 guitars; plus Ruthie Foster

Ruthie Foster

Ruthie Foster is an American singer-songwriter of blues and folk music.Foster is from Gause, Texas and comes from a family of gospel singers. She studied music at McLennan Community College and then worked in the US Navy, where she started performing. Her debut was released in 1997 and she has...

 and Cyd Cassone on vocals

Human voice

The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. Its frequency ranges from about 60 to 7000 Hz. The human voice is specifically that part of human sound production in which the vocal folds are the primary...

. James' own songs appeared on Fast Texas, as well as covers

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 of work from Hop Wilson

Hop Wilson

Hardin "Hop" Wilson was an American Texas blues steel guitar player. Wilson gained the nickname "Hop" as a devolution of "Harp" due to his constant playing of a harmonica as a child...

, Milton Brown

Milton Brown

Milton Brown was an American band leader and vocalist who co-founded the genre of Western swing. His band was the first to fuse hillbilly hokum, jazz, and pop together into a unique, distinctly American hybrid, thus giving him the nickname, "Father of Western Swing"...

, and Little Hat Jones

Little Hat Jones

George "Little Hat" Jones was an American blues musician.-Biography:Jones, born in Bowie County, Texas, was a street busker in the 1920s in San Antonio, and he recorded one 78rpm for Okeh Records on June 15, 1929. That same day, he played guitar on nine tracks by Alger "Texas" Alexander in the...

. Cashdollar and Alvin Youngblood Hart

Alvin Youngblood Hart

Alvin Youngblood Hart is a Grammy Award-winning American musician.-Career:Born in Oakland California, Hart had family connections with Carroll County, Mississippi, and spent time there in his childhood, hearing his relatives stories of Charlie Patton, "being around these people who were there when...

 had previously guested on Boom Chang.

James' playing has also appeared on recordings from James McMurtry

James McMurtry

James McMurtry is a Texas rock/Texas Country singer, songwriter, guitarist, bandleader and occasional actor...

 and Ana Egge

Ana Egge

Ana Egge is an American folk singer/songwriter. She sings, plays guitar, mandolin, bottleneck slide guitar and piano during her live performances. Egge released her 7th record, Bad Blood on August 23, 2011...

. He has released an instructional video and contributed to Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic Guitar (magazine)

Acoustic Guitar is a monthly magazine published in the United States since July/August 1990 by String Letter Publishing. The magazine offers information related to acoustic guitars for players of all levels from beginners to teachers. Each issue includes a half dozen or so songs with notation and...

.

He continues to tour around the world and incorporates teaching sessions on guitar playing techniques.

Discography

• Two Track Mind (1993) - Discovery
• American Primitive (1994) - Antones
• Art & Grit (1996) - Texas Music Group
• Not for Highway Use: Austin Sessions 1988-1995 (2000) - Settlement
• Boom Chang (2000) - Burnside Distribution
• Fast Texas (2003) - Burnside Distribution
• Tonight (2004) - Artist One-Stop
• Steve James + Del Rey (2004) - Hobemian
• Short Blue Stories (2009) - Hobemian