Jim was born in Merced, California on April 17th 1947…the same year that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. Also of note in 1947, Charles Ives received a Pulitzer prize for his 3rd Symphony.

Jim’s family ran a small dairy farm with some almond orchards in the Amsterdam area of Merced County. But other than a few odd summer jobs in the Peach orchards, Jim’s life was not to be in Agriculture.

“I think that other than “Happy Birthday” and Christmas songs, the first song I ever remember hearing was some early version of “Red Sails in the Sunset”, Jim recalls, “Dad had taken us into town to a drive in restaurant and it was playing on the car radio, a tune I still remember.”

Jim’s first musical instrument was a Clarinet, that he began to play in grade school in the 5th grade. “About the same time, Elvis and all that Rock and Roll stuff started happening and I began to be a radio-listener…and somewhere in there popped Chuck Berry. I didn’t hear any Clarinet in much of that early rock, but I liked the drums and fantasized about one day being a drummer”, says Jim.

Instead, somewhere in the later part of his Junior year in High School, the Hootenany craze hit and Jim joined his brother Jeff and a couple of other classmates and began singing Folk songs at School Assemblies. “Since there were mostly four Bob Hess, David Gresham, Jeff and I, I think we called ourselves, what else? The Four” remembers Jim.

That group later folded when High School ended for Jim and Dave. But Jim soon picked up a cheap guitar and began banging away on it like it was a drum set. “I really liked Bo Diddley because he played guitar like it was a snare drum”, says Jim.

One afternoon in the summer of 1965, Jim was browsing the LP collection at Record Rendezvous, the local record shop when he and this little round-faced kid reached for the same Beatles album. The kid turned out to be Tom Salles, and a life-long musical collaboration began.

Their first band included Jim, Tom, brother Jeff, Dave Sprinkel, Andy Daniel, and Roger Henry. They called themselves the Morelochs, after the creatures in the Time Machine movie. Their set list included mostly Top 40 covers and because they all could sing, they began to be noticed for their work doing Beatles covers.

“I think the first Beatles song I ever heard was in the Summer or early Fall of 1963 when a version of “Please, Please Me” was played on KYNO out of Fresno. It was only on for about a day or two, but the DJ’s played it about every other song. I remember thinking that this music was something really unique, a little hint of Buddy Holly, a little hint of Chuck Berry, but something exciting and new. Of course, early in 1964 the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan, and ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ hit the airwaves, and along with half the population of the Planet, I was hooked on the Beatles!” recalls Jim.

The Morelochs would ultimately morph into a San Francisco style of 60’s band, Crystal Syphon, featuring the Sanders brothers, Jim on rhythm guitar, Jeff on vocals, Tom Salles was lead guitar and vocalist , The brothers Greenlee, (Bob on bass and Marvin equipment manager turned drummer )and Sprinkel on keyboards and vocals.

1967 and ’68 found the Crystal Syphon playing venues all over the state of California, including the Fillmore and Avalon in San Francisco and the Paladium in Los Angeles. They tried recording but failed to flesh out any deals. They became a competent original music band.

But somewhere along the middle of 1969, Jim found himself married with one child and another soon on its way, so in the interest of Domestic Tranquility ( but he was divorced within two years, anyway!) his last performance with Crystal Syphon was a concert at the Merced County Fairgrounds on Memorial Day, 1969 featuring Big Brother and the Holding Company, and a new group on the San Francisco scene Santana.

For the next 30 years or so, Jim pretty much put away his music, except when he would haul out an old classical guitar and serenade some potential girl friend, or sit down with Salles to write a song, or talk about writing a song. “About every five years, I would run into Tom Clarkson and he would ask, ‘When are we going to get together and jam?’

“Then one day, a couple of years ago, I again run into Tom Salles , this time at a local coffee hangout and the subject of resurrecting some of the old Crystal Syphon songs came up. Salles suggested I get one of those cheap guitars from Musician’s Friend and get back into it. So, I ordered up a Gibson SG Special for about $500.00 bucks. Now, here I am with four guitars, three or four amps, about six hundred miles of cable to hook it all together, and am part of this Beatles Project for the past year. It is a lot of fun!” adds Jim, “and I don’t have to worry about running into Tom Clarkson and making a lame ass excuse why I can’t jam with him.”

“I found that while I walked away from music, it never left me. This is a real treat to happen at this point in what has been an eventful life, thus far!”.