Biography However, this is not necessarily a bad thing, since
he feels that it is only over the past few years that his songwriting has
matured to the point where 80 percent of his songs are worth a public
airing. The other 20 percent remain hidden away in the back of his filing
cabinet. While it has been a 'long apprenticeship', it does
have at least one other benefit according to Jim, who says, "At this
age, no one is ever going to burden me with a ‘New Bob Dylan’
tag!" While Jim likes to keep his age a closely guarded secret, his
friends and family know that he is a very young 50 something! Jim has been honing his performance skills at
various venues around Adelaide, (and further afield), including The
Crafers Inn, where the Hills Folk Club meets every month, and as a member
of SCALA (the
Songwriter’s Composers and Lyricists Association) where he sings
regularly at The Joiners Arms Hotel, 9, Manton Street, Hindmarsh, SCALA's
weekly performance venue. He is an active member of the Folk
Federation of South Australia, and can often be found behind the bar(!) serving drinks to patrons
attending the Folk Federations performance venue. Jim designed and
continues to maintain the Federation's web site. He has also contributed
several articles to SCALA NEWS the bi-monthly newsletter of SCALA., two of
which you can in the Songwriting & Performing section of this
site. Over the years, he has entered several songs in the
annual Songwriting Event which was part of the State Folk Festival held at
Victor Harbor each year. In 1989 his song 'The Future Is Yours' was
selected as one of 12 finalists in that event, while in 1990 his song 'Trivial
Pursuit' made it to third place. Following each Songwriting Event both
songs were subsequently recorded by Jim for SCALA and released on
compilation cassettes featuring all the finalists from each year. Jim was also a finalist in SCALA's 1999 Festival of
Original Music (FOOM) in which he entered the song 'Feel The Fear, and
Make it Run', and again in 2001 with the song Dance Like No-one
is Watching.
Jim Lesses has been writing songs since his
mid-teens, although he only began performing them on regular basis since
1996. As Jim likes to say, he is something of a "late bloomer".
Jim released his first solo recording in July 2002. Called, Sometimes (I Wake Up Naked), from the song of the same name, it contains some of his best known and most popular songs.
In the very near future, Jim will be releasing his second album, American Dream. The album was recorded, produced, and mixed entirely by Jim at his home studio. It is worth noting that Jim plays and sings every thing on the album himself.
"After 30 years of singing to myself," he says, "I think it’s time I inflicted my songs onto a more responsive audience. After all, it's hard getting any meaningful feedback from the bedroom walls!"
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