By: Rick Landers
Jim Fowler – photo credit: Cindy Fowler
We’re living in a time where artists who learned music are retiring from their day jobs and retain a spark of creativity re-energized by the free-time allowed when their nine to five hour jobs have vanished.
Like singer-songwriter, Jim Fowler, they return to their imaginings with more life-experiences and a more urgent need to speak out in song with lyrics, rhythms and melodies sprouting like fields of gold.
Certainly, the world of music has aged in both glorious and inglorious ways. The advent of electronics and the Internet has unleashed thousands of original songwriters and cover artists tooling around performing live or “making records” for music platforms like CDBaby, Spotify, and more.
So, there’s much music available for world-wide audiences to hear and to click and choose. With this expanded arena for music consumption, coupled with the disintegration of financial payback by a monopolization of music distribution channels, there’s a rush to create with a realization of little to no monetary gain.
Fowler’s early success in Gospel music spiked and the success became a touchstone, a time and place to build on now that he has re-emerged with a more mature grace and perspective on the world of expectations, where competition flourishes and the bucks have dwindled. Yet, his creativity continues to overflow.
Growing up near Fender Guitar’s Fullerton, California, facility, he not only discovered a love of guitar, and other musical instruments, but also found himself surrounded by inventive, now legendary, musicians.
It only made sense for Jim to create music on guitar inspired by his religious leanings, so Gospel became a staple of his own music, while he listened as a fan to rock, pop, folk, rockabilly, surf and other songs, as he turned the radio dial to key stations.
His song, “Everything I Need” won first place in a national songwriting contest. The song was included in the award winning musical called Dreamer, that won in the Best Musical category.
Jim’s interest in music extended beyond the guitar and he dedicated time to learn bass, ukuleles, mandolin, cuatro, harmonica and a smattering of Irish whistle, brass, keyboards and drums.
Today, where artists who learned music are retiring from their day jobs and retain a spark of creativity re-energized by the free-time allowed when their nine to five hour jobs have vanished. Like singer-songwriter, Jim Fowler, they return to their imaginings with more life-experiences and a more urgent need to speak out in song
As Fowler experienced the crests and troughs of every day life, he continued to hand write his songs on legal yellow pads, accumulating hundreds. Hundreds that he is now revisiting to see if the songs still have legs or if he can rework them, moving them to a better musical place.
So, just as Jim has returned to his music ambitions with more vigor, many of his life experiences mirror those of Guitar International readers, getting back out there to meet the challenges, the disappointments and the highlights of performing in front of live audiences and looking toward getting back into studio work.
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Rick Landers: Many musicians have started out in their youth to develop as musicians, and some gained a following, then transitioned to a more traditional career path only to re-emerge finding themselves in a new world of music, with its modern technologies, more competitive opportunities and very challenging financial disparities given new musical distribution platforms. Tell us about the road you traveled in the beginning and successes you experienced and how the world of music worked back then…
Jim Fowler on bass – photo credit: Rick Landers
Jim Fowler: For me, “back then” was the late 1970s through the 1980s. I grew up in Southern California (in Fullerton, home of Fender guitars) at the tail end of the folk rock era. So I learned to play guitar listening to singer/songwriters like Jim Croce, John Denver and Neil Diamond.
At the same time, I cut my teeth playing electric bass for school jazz ensembles and rock bands. So, I was exposed to a wide range of styles initially. But right away I became immersed in the SoCal Jesus Movement, which has been highlighted in recent documentaries.
The “Jesus Music” as it came to be known, sounded like contemporary music of the time, but the words were completely religious (in the Evangelical and Charismatic traditions). Jesus Music existed as a little island in the larger music industry, with its own artists, recording labels, radio stations and distribution networks.
Around 1977 I began writing songs within this subculture, and a couple of them became local “standards” sung by youth groups in churches and camps. Then in 1981 I won a first prize in a nationwide Gospel songwriting contest, and the song, “Everything I Need,” was included in a musical by CA Music called Dreamer.
That musical won a Dove Award (the Gospel equivalent of a Grammy) in 1983 for Best Musical. It was toured around the world for two summers by a collection of youth ensembles called the Continental Singers. Many churches staged the musical as well. As a result of this early success, I moved to Nashville to try to become a full-time Gospel songwriter. However, I was not successful, and eventually abandoned my professional music aspirations to move into a traditional career in high tech. I retired from my 34-year career in 2022.
Rick: Were there times where you had dry spells where writing became more of a distraction, given how life’s roles and responsibilities realigned for you?
Jim Fowler: Oddly, it was quite the opposite for me. Granted there were a few years where I was battling some personal challenges such as depression, and I did not write. But for the most part I have written consistently for 50 years. Even though I was not making much in terms of royalties, for many years I still wrote songs that were being sung in churches by small congregations.
From my early experience, I learned how much of an impact one of my songs could have on a person’s life – moving them emotionally or getting them through a tough time. For example, I could probably go on the Web right now and find some testimonials about the impact “Everything I Need” has had on people’s lives outside the USA. So even though songwriting has not made a living for me, I still consider it my life’s work having seen what a song can mean to people. And now it’s a way of life… a habit and how I express myself. As my wife, Cindy, sometimes says to me, “You cannot not write.”
Rick: How did you initially get interested in playing a musical instrument, and what drew you toward other instruments?
Jim Fowler: As a child I was very introverted and fearful (I would later learn that I have Type 2 Bipolar Disorder), and I did not mix well with other kids. I was really bad at sports. So, learning to play Jim Croce or Neil Diamond songs on guitar became a way to create an identity for myself and invest myself in something that could not reject or ostracize me.
I played piano very early, then guitar, as well as band instruments: clarinet, baritone horn and French horn. By middle school I’d figured out I could play multiple instruments and there was no limitation in that regard. Then in high school I took up bass guitar, and I would also play drums in the band practice room at lunch time when no one was around. I was not great at it, but I loved it. The most important lesson I learned was that music is in your mind and your hands, not in an instrument.
An instrument is simply a tool of expression. Would you ask an artist to paint with only one brush or one color? Different instruments and tunings are like that to me. If you learn to play guitar in open G tuning, with a bit of adaptation you can also play banjo. Flip the lowest 4 strings of a guitar upside down, and with some additional effort you can play mandolin. It’s really variations on a basic theme.
Rick: Over the years, how has your creativity evolved and what, if anything, dramatically changed your choice of music topics and styles – what were the catalysts in your development?
Jim Fowler: From a stylistic standpoint, I was fortunate to grow up in Southern CA, which was a hotbed of musical activity. I learned guitar and songwriting in the folk tradition (fingerstyle and flatpicking) and had a lot of exposure to bluegrass and country through listening to albums by Doc Watson, Leo Kottke and Chet Atkins. But then as I took up the bass and began to play in various ensembles,
I became exposed to swing, rock, funk, Latin and ballad styles – and all the songs from the Great American Songbook. We also performed musicals in my high school, so I became exposed to musical theater by playing (very badly) in the pit orchestra on French horn. So, playing different instruments brought me into contact with a wide range of musical styles that eventually came together in my later songwriting efforts. It terms of topics, I’ve only had two “eras.” My songs were almost entirely based around Biblical topics until 2013. At that point I left the Evangelical church and I have been writing songs primarily on “secular” topics since then.
Rick: How do you approach songwriting these days? Do you have a set formula or do you intentionally attempt to experiment with other music, including music from other styles or cultures?
Jim Fowler: I would not say I have a formula, but I do have an established process. Almost daily I am writing lyrics or fragments of lyrics that I later finish. I will generally use the verse/chorus/bridge pattern or the Beatlesque AABA pattern. So I have a book of lyrics with no music. Often a lyric will suggest a musical style, or I will have a style in mind when I write it.
When I compose music it’s generally in the mashup category we call Americana. But sometimes it’s specifically Latin or Irish or Blues. If I had to worry about “cultural appropriation” I think I would stop writing altogether. To me, it’s all music and what we have now is a multicultural mix of styles and influences. You cannot unscramble that egg. I can also say some of the music I compose comes from free improvisation. I will pick up an instrument and start playing without an agenda and use my phone to capture bits that seem interesting. Then later I will try to apply those to various lyrics – or they grow into instrumental compositions.
Rick: What motivates or inspires you to write a song? And, do you drop song ideas and move on to something else, or do you hold onto those “bad” ideas until they might become good ideas for a song?
Jim Fowler: I collect song ideas and titles like a magpie. I have a book full of them right now. They can come from overheard conversations, or something I’ve read, or words that seemed to pop into my head from nowhere (the muse?). Sometimes those ideas develop into a full lyric and sometimes I discard them. If I have a list or a bunch of pages of ideas, the good ones seem to stick their heads up upon later review. Then after a while, I’ll have a bunch of completed lyrics in a binder. After I’ve sat on those for a while I will look back at them and identify certain ones that “deserve” to have music written to them.
After I have written music to several songs, I will usually decide I like one of them enough to try it out with friends or an audience. Based on the reaction I will typically re-write it and keep it or put it in the dreaded archive (though songs do sometimes emerge from the archive much later and receive a re-write). So It’s a bit like an assembly line, with opportunities to toss the lesser candidates at each step in the process. But sometimes, good songs come from completely violating the process!
Rick: Did your career offer you any kind of positive inclinations to help you become a better songwriter and performer?
Jim Fowler: I spent the majority of my career in high tech PR, marketing and competitive intelligence. I learned at least three things along the way that have proved quite helpful to my writing and performing. First, I was constantly writing and creating content on deadline: marketing copy, press releases, articles, white papers and the like. I learned quickly that it’s useless to wait for inspiration; I picked up techniques and tricks to defeat the blank page and get the job done. There’s a saying in songwriting, “inspiration is for amateurs.”
Jim Fowler – photo credit: Cindy Fowler
The best thing is to write constantly and develop a flow. Some of what flows is garbage, and some of it is worth keeping and building upon. Second, in my work I spent a good bit of time speaking in front of audiences large and small. I learned to speak extemporaneously using an outline, but also to memorize a scripted speech, similar to a TEDx talk. What I found out was this: once I went over a speech about 40 times it was committed to memory and it was then second-nature and I could focus on connecting with the audience.
In the early days of trying to perform my original songs before an audience, I had lots of trepidation about forgetting words and chords. Performing was a very unpleasant experience. But then I heard Tommy Emmanuel say if you forget your songs during a performance it’s because you haven’t practiced them enough. Ah! I recalled the 40-repetitions rule and applied it to my practicing sessions. Now I am much more confident and at-ease as a performer, knowing I can rely on my practice routine to lock songs into memory.
Finally, my business experience taught me that nobody is waiting in the wings to promote your work to your peers and managers. You must be a fearless self-promoter if you are to retain visibility, and frankly, keep your job. A few fortunate artists get to hire publicists and managers to sing their praises. But the rest of us need to learn to self-promote, even though it feels uncomfortable and contrary to everything an artist is supposed to stand for.
Rick: As life goes on, have you found your ambitions or aspirations changing, maybe maturing, where you now find yourself focused on results more appealing than they were when you were younger?
Jim Fowler: When I was in my twenties, I carried a strong ambition to make a living in music. My early success writing religious songs for a very specific audience fueled my expectations that I might succeed as a professional songwriter. At that time, it was easy to tell whether or not I had succeeded. Were my songs getting recorded by artists? Were congregations singing the songs I’d written and were those songs spreading in popularity?
As it became clear that I lacked the focus, and perhaps the talent, to make a living as a songwriter I had to find other reasons to keep writing. I found that I simply needed to create, and even the chance that one of my songs might touch people – and might grow legs and go where I could not take it – was sufficient motivation. Now I am mostly focused on writing songs and tunes for my own live performance and recording, and I’ve found a new audience on social media. I’m not thinking in terms of thousands or tens of thousands of listeners as I did in my twenties. Now it’s tens and (maybe) hundreds. But I have a more up-close relationship with my listeners now than I did back then.
Rick: Given the lack of financial gain that can be accrued these days, what kinds of financial incentives seem to be the best channels of opportunity for a singer-songwriter?
Jim Fowler: That’s a really tough question. It’s a mixed bag, right, because it’s never been easier for a singer-songwriter to record and promote their work. You can build a good home studio for not much money. You can record videos with your phone. And there are thousands of tools available online to promote your music. But this technological breakthrough has led to millions of pieces of content being produced per day. The online streaming services pay pennies or fractions of pennies per play. And that’s if you pay to get onto playlists to actually get your music listened to.
Sales of CDs has plummeted. Synchronization services are flooded with seasoned professional songwriters, so the chance of getting music picked up seems about like winning the lottery. Forget about getting cuts on established artists – they either write their own songs with a producer, or go to bankable writing teams for material. So the only remaining opportunity for a non-established singer-songwriter is live performance. If you are persistent and gain a good reputation, you can start getting booked by restaurants, bars, breweries, farmers markets and festivals. But it takes a lot of hustle to make even a few thousand dollars a year. It’s tough out there!
Rick: There are various ways to gain credibility as a songwriter, and you’ve earned some accolades with solid credentials. What kinds of “stamps of approval” help along the way, whether we’re talking about song contests, audience reactions, repeat performances, getting synch opportunities to fall your way, etc.
Jim Fowler: I have seen people win song contests and use that particular accolade to get invited to songwriter showcases. So that definitely can help. A close friend who is a very good songwriter and composer worked extremely hard to break into the synchronization business, and ultimately got nowhere. So that sort of put me off of sync. I think it does come back to performing live and getting good audience reactions, and slowly building a reputation by word of mouth and online promotion.
Rick: What constructive actions have you taken to move forward in your music, including sharing it with others?
Jim Fowler: In my local area (Northern Virginia) there is an organization called the Folk Club of Reston-Herndon. It meets weekly at a restaurant and there are typically 40 or 50 people in attendance. Around 15 performers get a chance to play two songs at each meeting. That has been a great venue for me to share my original songs with a listening audience.
This year, the club celebrates its 40th anniversary! As a multi-instrumentalist, I have found sharing live performance videos in Facebook groups to be a great way to promote my music. The ukulele groups, especially, are quite receptive. There are dozens of them, and many have tens of thousands of members worldwide. The members enjoy learning new techniques and new songs. They are quite interactive as well. I don’t bother anymore to post music videos to songwriter groups; there is very little interest. But the instrument-focused groups are really good.
Rick: What songwriters have inspired you or you have emulated to add beef to your songwriting? And do you think there’s some common ingredient in them that attracts you to their lyrics or melodies or musical choices?
Jim Fowler – photo credit: Cindy Fowler
Jim Fowler: In the early days, I took specific songwriting courses through the Gospel Music Association and had my songs critiqued by working singer-songwriters such as Bruce Herring and John Fischer. That was an excellent foundation for me. I also had immersed myself in the songs of artists like Jim Croce, Seals and Crofts, Loggins and Messina, Neil Diamond and John Denver – all the popular soft rock artists of the 70s.
Learning to play their songs provided a writing foundation through osmosis. More recently I have been inspired by the lyric, melody and harmony work of the Broadway composers and lyricists – Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rogers, Oscar Hammerstein III – as well as Paul McCartney and George Harrison. For example Harrison’s unique use of dominant 7 and diminished chords is very interesting. I try to listen to a variety of music daily.
Lately I have been listening to the work of a Latin American writer of religious songs called Jesus Adrian Romero. I don’t speak Spanish, and don’t understand most of his lyrics. But his melodies and harmonies are so moving! I believe all the melodies I hear are stored in my memory and come out in little fragments in my own songwriting (but it’s important to recognize when I have pilfered too big a chunk!)
Rick: Have your found the music community in your area supportive, or does it lean toward a competitive scene, and what are the benefits or detriments about praise or negativity that you can leverage to balance or have the most insightful perspective of your music, maybe something like a SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) analysis to enable you to develop a smart music career strategy?
Jim Fowler: Wow, there could be an entire article around just that one question! BTW I used SWOT constantly in my 11 years doing competitive analysis. Generally I have found the local music community to be very supportive. Besides the Folk Club of Reston-Herndon, the Washington DC area also features the Songwriters Association of Washington (SAW) which hosts workshops, showcases and other events for songwriters.
The DC area is really a great area for singer-songwriters. SAW also hosts and annual songwriting contest, and many of the entrants and winners are local writers. Even though I won a national songwriting contest when I was younger (and was a category finalist in our local contest in 2017), I have found song contests lately to be not so great for me.
I began to compare my work negatively with other writers when I did not win something. I had to pull myself together and recall what producer Rick Rubin said – the only person who gets to judge whether your work is good is you. So, I have most recently begun to focus as a writer only on enjoying the creative process and pleasing my own audience. That’s enough.
Also, I am part of a small songwriter circle where trusted writers listen and critique each other’s work. I’ve found this group to be quite supportive and also vital for growth and improvement. No matter how long someone has been writing, every new song is subject to the writer’s particular blind spots. Unless a song is workshopped, those blind spots are nearly impossible to uncover.
Rick: Essentially, a music career tends to be a series of entrepreneurial “jobs” or “gigs” that include crests and troughs, so there must be an ability or inner strength to re-invent one’s self over and over again. But, maybe, in-between have you found there are dry spells that are essentially times when you need some breathing room to chill a bit, before you move forward again? If so, how does that feel?
Jim Fowler: Looking back, I certainly agree with you that my artistic life has been a series of ups and downs, fruitful periods and dry times, and multiple re-inventions. But I have always seen music as essential to my core being.
It is my mission, and as I said before, my life’s work. In that regard, it was almost a blessing that I was not able to earn a living at music. Music became an oasis I could return to on a daily basis after the often-frustrating experience of whatever day gig I was doing. And here I think being a multi-instrumentalist was also very important. I can get bored playing a particular instrument. For some people that could lead to a completely fallow period, which is fine.
But for me it has often meant moving to a different instrument I had not played for weeks or months. Now that particular instrument is once again fresh and new to me, and I am inspired to play! You can do the same trick in a small way with a new tuning, bottleneck slide, or even using a capo. I would highly encourage any guitarist to learn another instrument – ukulele, banjo, keyboards, mandolin, bouzouki, even harp (maybe not accordion, ha!). Experiment and explore!
Rick: So, what’s next for you and what are you focused on, maybe those things you are working on to kick-start your most recent career aspirations?
Jim Fowler: I am currently developing my performer website, ShoutMusicJim to showcase all my audio and video recordings in a single place for easy access. I am also working up a set of songs to hopefully do some opening slots for various local artists. Eventually, I hope to perform some solo singer-songwriter shows. But I’ll need to work up to those – small steps! Thanks for interviewing me, Rick, it has been a genuine pleasure. And much continued success to Guitar International Magazine!
