Jim Simpson is an award-winning fiction writer and freelance music critic. A native of the wilds of Florida's Gulf Coast, he now resides on the scruffy fringes of Atlanta, Georgia.
He frequently writes about music, with his taste spanning all genres: bluegrass, Americana, classic country, alt-country, western swing, blues, classical, rock 'n' roll, punk, reggae, klezmer, and British isles folk (to name but a few).
He once sang "Happy Birthday" (with about 10,000 other people) to Joni Mitchell, and has seen such legends as Miles Davis, The Incredible Jimmy Smith, Rockpile, Blue Rodeo, King Sunny Ade, David Bowie, Joan Jett, Robyn Hitchcock, R.E.M., Rosanne Cash, Elvis Costello and Bob Dylan live in concert. He has interviewed Those Darlins, John Linnell of They Might Be Giants, Marshall Chapman, Charlie Louvin, Derek Hoke, Jim Avett, the Secret Sisters, and Meghan McCormick.
Jim is a former editor for Awaiting the Flood and has written for The Atlanta Music Guide, Hellbomb, Earbuddy, The Weeklings, The Book Shopper, and The Nervous Breakdown. He recently finished his first novel, and if all goes well it should be in bookstores sometime before his death.
Story time with Billy Joe. (Kids, leave the room.)
On a cold night that felt more like western New York than the Piedmont of Georgia, Donna the Buffalo brought a three-hour party to Duluth with positive vibes and extended jams that had nearly everyone dancing in the aisles. Even […]
Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of Christmas or “holiday” shows, especially those featuring big band music. While I appreciate the work of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and Count Basie, it’s never been my favorite style of jazz. […]
Dressed in a faded denim jacket, shirt, jeans, and beat-up brown cowboy hat, Billy Joe Shaver strode onstage and unceremoniously dropped his jacket and plastic bottle of water in front of a monitor, waved to the crowd and launched into […]
At first glance, the Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Tech appeared to be of average size, but on this night the theater held not only a packed house but the entire history of a quintessentially American music: New […]
Solomon Cento Passing night, calm and still in the land of the whippoorwill, spring’s again upon us, snow’s melting high above. Whose words are these? I just don’t know. I’ve been making cars for almost 20 years: in Susquehanna County […]
Monrovia Colorado is as far from Nashville As Nashville is from Monrovia. The Ivory Coast is an embattled, ruthless place; So is Music City, but in a first-world white way. Still, aren’t we all the same? All brothers and sisters? […]
The Farmacology Sessions (The Iambic Summer) we shuffle down this dry heatstroke road seeking the cool white blocks of cinder that might grant us passage to a place like the best summer in all our lives when everything was golden […]
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