Songwriter Jim Gary Talks Music, Art, Future of Folk

Jim Gary doesn't look like a rule-breaker. His midwestern accent, white goatee and light polo shirt do not exactly exude rebellion.

Sitting across from him at First Cup Cafe in Elmhurst, Ill., his hometown, the first sign of his contradictory nature was the order he placed with barista.

How could it be that a singer/songwriter who cut his teeth playing coffeehouses in Michigan, back when folk music was in its heyday, shuns a cup of Joe?

Well, he was always there for the music.

"I played a lot of coffeehouses and I don't drink coffee," he told me. "I mean, that's where acoustic music was going on, so that was the place to be."

While Gary enjoys playing with lyrical and musical perceptions, even the genre with which he is most closely associated has learned to bend the rules. According to Gary, folk listeners have come a long way since a guy called Bob Dylan "Judas" for daring to switch genres. 

"The folk festivals, I think, have become more inclusive. It's a wider spectrum of music. You've got Americana; you've got bluegrass," Gary said. "There was always that debate of 'What is folk music?' If folks are doing it, it's folk music. At one point in time, jazz was the folk music because that's what everyone was playing. But eventually, it became 'jazz,' and people moved on from there."

That diversity allows Gary to feel comfortable as a headliner at the first annual Jazz and Blues Festival on July 24, where his performance is sponsored by the First National Bank of Brookfield.

Last year, Gary participated in Community Park District of La Grange Park's Music Under the Stars series; he said he is looking forward to this year's festival, where he'll perform in the Memorial Park Amphitheatre, at the corner of Woodlawn Avenue and North La Grange Road.

Gary started playing guitar and writing music in his home in eastern Michigan when he was 14, and even then he was playing tricks on his audience by turning phrases and lyrics on their head.

His first "keeper" song was an exercise in linguistics.

"I think the first one was probably 'Song Without Rhyme.' Though it did rhyme," he said with a sly smile. "Sometimes I have a knack for trying to do little ironic things... I like to play with words."

After college, Gary settled in Chicago, getting to know the local scene at the Old Town School of Folk Music with the likes of local musicians Bob Gibson and Michael Smith. He attended writers' workshops only to find that the popular edict of "a writer writes every day" didn't fit him.

"I don't do that. I'm more of an inspirational writer. Something will hit me, you know. And then there's some things that just stew in the back of my mind for months or years. And I'll say, 'That's still a good idea,' but somehow I haven't been able to come up with enough material for three minutes," he explained.

It seems artist workshops tend to have that effect on Gary. He worked on a technical theater apprenticeship shortly after moving to Elmhurst 17 years ago, but it wasn't until two years ago that he tried his hand at acting.

"All the two studio [acting] classes taught me was that I don't want to act," Gary said. "Everybody's dependent on you. If you screw up... it's not like, 'Take two!'"

Still, Gary has been involved in props and lighting at The Theater of Western Springs, a community theater that will celebrate its 82nd season this fall. He's been coaxed onstage by the director before, but only under certain conditions. 

"I keep telling them, 'The only way you're going to get me onstage is if I have a guitar between me and the audience.' So, they're innovatively, creatively finding ways to do that," Gary said.

He also played his guitar in a fundraiser for the all-volunteer theater. The acting experience has given him a new appreciation for the self-dependency that comes with solo performances.

"If I mess up, it just affects me. I can cover for me," he laughed. 

With decades of songwriting, performing and a critically-acclaimed album under his belt, Gary has a pretty firm grasp of the peculiarities of being one's "own accompanist" on stage, as he put it. 

"As a songwriter, that's the hardest part. [Audience members] have to sit and listen for two and a half, three minutes–or at least through the first verse and chorus–to find out if you're even worth listening to," Gary said. "With a song, they're expecting some kind of continuity. You know, you can't do a verse about a dog, and then the next verse is about your girlfriend."

Except when you do exactly that.

Gary's song, "Lucky and Me," is about a stray dog adopting a woman of his affections—"in a previous life," Gary said—named Joanne. It's a witty stream-of-consciousness tune that ends with the singer and Lucky both "panting" away for Joanne's affections as "two lucky dogs."

"It was a real fun song to write," he recalled, grayish-blue eyes sparkling.

"I just suddenly realized one day that I don't have a dog song. And I figured every folk singer or country western singer has got to have a dog song," he said. "When I met Lucky, I said, 'OK, let's sit down and see what we can do with this one.' And I found out that Lucky was just his first name. His full name was Lucky To Be Alive, because he was also a chocoholic and a chicken thief..." 

"The line about Joanne; it just so happened that her name was Joanne. And the only song I remembered of a Joanne was the Michael Nesmith song, 'Joanne.' I've had people say, 'You know, I really like that one line in there.' And I say, 'Well yeah, that's the one line I didn't write!' It's a Michael Nesmith song, you know it's 'Joanne/ She lived in the meadow.' Come on!"

So you can't write a song about a dog and a girl, except when you can. And you don't have to like coffee to live the coffeehouse performer's dream. Without rules, a folk singer can even write a song for American Idol.

Yes, the television show that has become the cookie cutter of American pop music once held a songwriting contest, which was how Gary got the ballad-like anthem he titled "Today (You Are Stronger)." Writing the song was a real exercise in framing for Gary.

"I said, 'I can't slant it one way or the other,'" Gary said of his thought process at the time. "I tried to do something more universal with that kind of thing. It might appeal to a soldier coming home, it might appeal to someone involved in Special Olympics, a cancer survivor or someone in rehab. Today is another day, and you put your pants on one leg at a time and somehow you get through it. Each day you're going to get stronger."

Though the song didn't win any awards, he still dreams of what might happen if he "could get some American Idol singer to really sing that."

"When that chorus opens up it really should be that full-blown band kind of stuff with keyboards and things that could really add a lot more than me, punkin' on the guitar. I'd love to hear that sometime with someone who could really sing, and with a full arrangement," Gary said.

Gary's influences and interests range far and wide, and his bristling at rules extends even to his own.

"I had a friend say one time, 'Maybe you should take the advice of your own songs,'" Gary said. "Some of it may be a way to just kind of give myself a pep talk." 

Then again, if he took his own advice, there wouldn't be that wonderful song about the girl and her two lucky dogs.

To learn more about Jim Gary and listen to some of his music, click here.