paul robert james
Total fans: 4
I played guitar in a couple of London bands (and in Leona Naess' first band before she signed to MCA). One of the bands, "Shine" was signed to a development deal with Sony UK. After that band split, I moved down to southern Spain where, with time on my hands for the first time in years, I began to rediscover the music that originally got me into playing music in the first place: early Bob Dylan and Stones, Gram Parsons, Neil Young, Richie Havens, roots country and blues, 60's soul and R&B... Re-inspired, I picked up an acoustic guitar and wrote some new songs. Around this time I stumbled across a funky little blues club in a local town run by some American kids. Every Thursday night, musicians would turn up to play and the place would be packed. I got up to jam most weeks and eventually ended up with a little solo spot, playing my own songs, just me and the acoutic guitar. The audience response was really surprising. I was getting asked if I had CDs of my stuff. I didn't, so borrowing some instruments, a battered old microphone and some basic recording equipment that had seen much better days, I set up at home and recorded. I played everything myself and having always recorded in bands, it felt like pure freedom. I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve and it was quick and easy to get it down. Once I'd finished 8 tracks, I pressed up 175 copies and sold them or gave them away at my "gigs" and they all disappeared in just over a month. I got some local radio station airplay too and at the moment, encouraged by the great response to the CD I'm trying to get a live band together to play some shows, but as there is no real scene down here, that's proving quite tough to do. So, in the meantime I'm spreading the word through my industry contacts and obviously the internet is a great way of getting exposure for my music too. I'm currently putting together a website and writing new songs everyday really buzzing with creative energy.