Jesse James (New EP Alert!)

--Daddy B. Nice

About Jesse James (New EP Alert!)

Born in El Dorado, Arkansas in 1963, James McClelland (aka Jesse James) grew up in the San Francisco bay area and came of age musically in the heady counter-culture world of the late sixties, collaborating with Sylvester Stone (of Sly & The Family Stone)--Sly was the guitarist--on some of his early singles for small area labels.

"Believe In Me Baby, Pt.1," which charted in 1967, led to his debut album (long out of print), JESSE JAMES, on 20th Century Fox, but that was it, and over the decades James continued to record on indie labels--switching to what would become his own imprint, Gunsmoke, in the late eighties--without much more than an occasional minor hit.

It wasn't until "I Can Do Bad By Myself," first recorded in 1988 (and reissued in '93), that James struck upon his signature song, and in the quarter-century since (featuring it on virtually every collection he has released) the song has proven its durability, through tenacity or charm (or both) becoming a bona fide underground and chitlin' circuit classic on the order of James' own professed hero, Bobby "Blue" Bland.

The song's success has led to a second, reinvigorated career for James, who disarms audiences with witty, often deadpan-humorous, aggrieved-"everyman" songs that recall the material of the late Jimmy Lewis (who, coincidentally, did in his greatest, genre-defining recordings with Peggy "Scott" Adams in California), songs with titles like "I'd Rather Eat Soup With You Than Steak With Somebody Else" and "You Were Doing Bad When I Met You"

In 2009 James scored a popular southern soul single, "If He Can't Hold His Pants Up (How Can He Hold You Up)," with the lyrics:

"He hangs on the corner
With his pants hanging down,
Talking on that ghetto phone
When he should be in school,
Getting his education on.

He was told it was cool
To wear his pants like that.
Somebody should tell him
He will never get a job like that."

Listen to Jesse James singing "If He Can't Hold His Pants Up" on YouTube.

And in 2011, collaborating with legendary producer Harvey Scales, Jesse scored a southern soul hit, "Let's Get A Room Somewhere," with another oft-overlooked veteran, foul-mouthed Texas diva Millie Jackson, reaching #11 on the Billboard R&B charts.

The song cozies up to the storied southern soul theme of cheating-in-the-motel from the perpetrators' expedient perspectives ("I left home mad as hell tonight" (Millie sings) "because me and my man had a hell of a fight"), including the "where-for's" and "what-to's:

"We can't go to my girlfriend's house,
She's a newly-wed.
You can't call your boy,
He's only got one bed."

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Tidbits

September 13, 2014:

Listen to Jesse James singing "Cheating In The Next Room" Live Onstage on YouTube.

Listen to an interview with Millie Jackson and Jesse James.

Listen to Jesse James singing "It Just Don't Feel The Same" on YouTube.

And, from his early career....

Listen to Jesse James singing "At Last" on YouTube.

Listen to Jesse James singing "I Can Feel Your Love Vibes" on YouTube.

Listen to Jesse James singing "I Need You Baby" on YouTube.

Honorary "B" Side

"Let's Get A Room Somewhere (feat. Millie Jackson)"