Jim Page

Unlike many contemporary songwriters, Jim Page defies musical categories. While the Seattle wordsmith is referred to in certain circles as a political songwriter, Page, in his own words, “refuses to compartmentalize.” “I’m not going down into that ghetto,” he says with a gleam in his eyes. “I’m a whole person. I have a political life and a love life. I don’t pay attention to the labels.” To Page, letting the critics define and pigeon-hole an artist is a trap that musicians should avoid. Anyone who has seen Page live or has listened to one of his many albums knows that the man can write a song about any subject matter under the sun. His newest release Ghost Bikes—recorded live in front of a studio audience—proves this point. It is a collection of engaging songs about everything from war and homelessness to the lives of Lightin’ Hopkins and Leonard Peltier. Each track bursts with Page’s clever wordplay and poetic observations, trademark qualities that have made him one of the most respected contemporary songwriters.
Page recorded Ghost Bikes at Jack Straw Productions in Seattle with “The Spokes,” a handful of talented musicians who lend masterful accompaniment to the songs. Specifically, Page is joined by Grant Dermody on harmonica, Michael Gray on violin and viola, Erin Corday on vocals and bamboo flute, and percussionist Joel Litwin on the brief case, shoe box, and raw pasta. The combination of musicians is perfect, lending a poignant yet playful mood to the album as a whole. “The energy was right,” Page proudly notes. “The recording was done in three hours, and there are no overdubs.” In fact, Page goes as far as saying that in terms of his discography, “Ghost Bikes” is his favorite album. For an artist who has released a number of critically-acclaimed albums, that’s saying a whole lot.
From the very first note of the opening track “Meinong”—a beautiful kaleidoscope of images from Page’s experiences performing in the Taiwanese township—listeners are treated to a tapestry of lyrics and melodic textures that capture the ear on an emotional level. Vivid lines such as: “Meinong, all around the circle eternity flows/ And after awhile you gotta go I suppose” intertwine with delightfully airy harmonica riffs and Corday’s smooth backing vocals. This pattern continues throughout Ghost Bikes. Driving fiddle accompanies Page’s rapid-fire strumming on “Lightnin’ Hopkins,” an incredible story-song about Page’s first musical influence. “I never learned to play the blues, I hope that’s alright” Page sings, and it becomes clear that a musician’s influence goes way beyond simply imparting technical skills. Like many great songs, Page ends it with a philosophical theme that sticks in one’s head: “Now some people they pass right through you, maybe leave a little mark/ Some people shine like a light for you sometimes/ And help you find your way when it’s dark.”
As with Jim Page’s previous albums, Ghost Bikes features a healthy does of observant social and political commentary. Page never preaches to the audience, though; instead, he presents his take on the world through detailed storytelling and well-crafted imagery. The album’s title track, for example, focuses on the tradition of painting and decorating bicycles to memorialize riders killed by reckless motorists. Woven into such metaphoric descriptions of ghost bikes as “pedal birds,” is Page’s advice to a world addicted to cars: “Humanity,” he sings, “…is going to have to decide whether to asphyxiate itself or go out for a ride.” Michael Gray’s fluid fiddle lines intertwine with Joel Litwin’s solid brush-work and Grant Dermody’s subtle harmonica playing to create an eloquent mood that perfectly matches Page’s vocal work.
“Yang Ru-Men” is one of the album’s gems, a story about a Taiwanese man who received a long prison sentence for leaving “rice bombs” (fake explosives) in public sites in an effort to publicize the destructive impact of corporate agribusiness and the WTO’s free trade policies on small farmers. While playing at a music festival in Taiwan, Page visited Yang Ru-Men in detention and told him that he would write a song about him. Before his imprisonment, Yang Ru-Men signed his communiqués to the press with the phrase: “When God closes a door, he opens a window.” It is this beautiful phrase that Page sings as a chorus, potently demonstrating that the best lyrics are rooted in real life struggles and experiences.
Other songs such as “Tent City” come across as polished vignettes. “Tent City” takes listeners on a cold, wet journey through makeshift villages of cardboard and plastic tarps where it’s “Too cold to sit down” and “too cold to stand.” Page’s reflection on the increase in tent cities across the landscape of the new depression is more than just a descriptive look at the right of every human to have decent shelter. His song also taps into the grassroots energy that has come from the organization of encampments like Dignity Village in Portland, Oregon. “Take a message to the man, whisper it in his ear,” he sings “Until we see some changes, we’re gonna stay right here!”
Page’s clear vocal style adds quite a bit to the overall feel of the album and makes his intelligent lyrics accessible to listeners. For example, his relaxed delivery of the slow blues number “Big Star Fallin’” complements his solid finger-picking and down-home lyrics. On other songs like “Song For Leonard Peltier,” Page eschews fancy phrasing and presents the story of the imprisoned Native American activist in a straightforward manner. “My singing is more like talking,” he says, commenting on his method. “When I listen to a song, I want to know what it’s about.” One of the most refreshing aspects of Ghost Bikes is that the lyrics jump right out, and the listener doesn’t have to play a song over and over again in order to figure out what Page is saying.
As a whole, Ghost Bikes is an impressive effort. Page’s trenchant lyrics and memorable melodies, and the cast of supportive players all come together to create one of 2010’s best folk albums. To promote Ghost Bikes, Page plans to embark on a major cross-country tour as well as a trip to Ireland (where he used to live and perform) in spring 2011. As an artist who has spent years honing his performing skills, Page is known for his energetic live shows. In fact, when the legendary Utah Phillips once took to the stage after Page, he said, “That Jim Page used up all the available vocabulary, and now I don’t know what songs I’m going to sing.” To experience just how good Jim Page is, grab a copy of Ghost Bikes, and go see him while he’s still on this side of the ocean.

Nathan Moore - Victory Music

The people’s voice | Jim Page seeks common ground through his topical songs
By Serena Markstrom
The Register-Guard
Appeared in print: Friday, Jun 18, 2010
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In folk musician Jim Page’s view, written lyrics and performed lyrics often conflict with each other, so he intentionally refrains from printing lyrics in his liner notes.
If you want to know what he’s saying in a song, you will have to listen to it.

His new CD, “Ghost Bikes,” was recorded live in the studio with a room full of 30 or so such listeners.

You can now have that vicarious experience by purchasing what he calls his best CD to date, and that is saying a lot for someone who has been writing songs for more than 45 years and whose bio includes endorsements from Bonnie Raitt, Christy Moore and Winona LaDuke.

As he was coming of age as a music lover, he absorbed lyrical content from repeated spins on his vinyl, even when the liner notes had the words printed on them.

“If you don’t get the words, you make up your own,” he said by phone.

The idea that the words say something different when performed versus read in the mind dovetails well with his view on what a folk song is in the first place.

An artist writes a song, with loyalty to the song first, but if the people whom the song is about accept it as their own, it becomes a folk song.

“Folk songs come from the people and return to them,” he writes in the liner notes to “Ghost Bikes.”

Originally the idea was to do a live CD at a gig, but there are logistical and mechanical barriers to doing that, not to mention the pressure to get it right in one take.

Creating a live setting in a studio relaxed all the musicians and they ended up getting almost all the tracks in one take anyway.

“The CD, I think it’s fabulous,” Page said by phone from Seattle. “It’s the only one that I have ever made that I have listened to repeatedly. Usually I listen just once and then I put it away.”

With Grant Dermody on harmonica, Michael Gray on strings, Erin Corday singing and playing the bamboo flute, Joel Litwin on percussion and special guest Joe Martin playing harmonica on two songs, the group performed Page’s songs at Jack Straw studio in Seattle.

He compared that day to a live jazz session, with the musicians achieving a sort of telepathic communication that means things are going well. It was recorded, mixed and mastered in 14 hours.

“These are my favorite players on the planet,” he said. “The music is friendly and it grooves, it’s got a relaxed percolation to it.”

The first track, “Meinong,” sets up a tone of openness. Its rhythm is in step with a happy walk around a new and wonderful place, which is how Meinong, Taiwan, greeted Page when he was there to play a festival.

Vivid imagery in the song are snapshots of things Page experienced there; a family of five on a motor scooter, a temple on a hillside, strong ginger tea.

Page is well known as a political songwriter, often invited to sing at rallies and protests.

About half of the songs are overtly political. In “Yang Ru-Men” he writes about the so-called “rice bomber” accused of terrorism for his messages to city folk about supporting local farmers in China. “Song for Leonard Peltier” is about the man serving two life sentences in Pennsylvania for the murder of two federal agents, a casualty of what the song calls the “Indian Wars.”

Page said he believes folk music gets over-intellectualized.

“If it’s done correctly then the people who lived the events of the song identify and appreciate it, and an outsider who knows nothing at all, appreciates and identifies also. Some people define folk music as it only becomes folk music when the origin is obscure, and that’s not fair. That is nonsense. A folk song serves the folk.”

“Lightin’ Hopkins” tells Page’s story that led to his desire to become a musician. From Page’s first radio encounter as a teen, Hopkins, a blues musician who died in 1982, was an important figure.

He met him at a club in Seattle once, and improvised the talking blues for him. But to try and be a bluesman like his hero would have been unauthentic.

“My father was a NASA engineer,” he said. “It felt fake,” to try to play the blues.
Page said people have imagined the end of the world since the beginning of time, but there is always an opening for hope.

“As grim as it looks to people (now), imagine you are living in the plague years,” he said. “Why am I so important to think that I would be alive in the end times? What good is it to stop struggling?

“Music is a great tool, and if the song is done correctly, a lot of people will listen to something that they wouldn’t otherwise listen to. It’s handy, and I have grown to love it.”

- Eugene Register-Guard

50 Most Influential Musicians
Rock guitarists, jazz singers, folk pioneers, world-class cellists and more—these are the people who changed the sound of our lives.

Seattle Metropolitan Magazine – December 2008

Jim Page

If Seattle’s radical past has survived to the present day, it’s reflected in the political songs of Jim Page. A modern successor to Woody Guthrie and Earl Robinson, Page has been writing and singing around here since the early 1970s. The City of Seattle changed its restrictions against busking in 1974 after Page lobbied the mayor and city council, gathered public support, and testified at a public hearing. He developed his performing chops singing in the streets, and playing during the breaks in other musicians’ gigs at clubs and taverns like Pioneer Square’s Inside Passage. “You had 15 minutes to get their attention, hold it while you did your thing, and set them up for the hat pass,” he remembers. At some places, he would end up with more in the hat than the featured band was paid for the night. —JR

Because of him… Musicians have the right to play on Seattle’s sidewalks.
Now hear this: Page delivers musical commentary about the impact of new money on this city in “Paul Allentown” from his 2004 Seattle Songs CD.

- Seattle Metropolitan Magazine