street roots
Feb. 1, 2013
Working artist, craftsman plays his heart out
Journeyman Jim Page talks about music, activism and todays political climate
BY SUE ZALOKAR
have any punch. Or you wrote it and then
you hear it a few years later and you think
oh geez, that’s embarrassing. That’s really
bad. I made myself write two songs a week,
even if there was nothing to write about.
And they sounded like that. You can write a
lot, but it doesn’t mean you should.
S T A F F W R IT E R
ailing from the Bay area in
California and making Seattle his
home for the last four decades,
Jim Page is an iconic storyteller with a heart
that beats in time with a lyricism that is at
once overtly political and in step with The
People. Phillip Elwood of the San Francisco
Examiner has likened his music to "... the
Woody Guthrie I heard as a boy more than
anyone I’ve listened to in the intervening
years.”
His music continues to influence many
people: musicians, teachers, students,
politicians, and a wide array of people
involved in the social justice movement. A
quick glance at his biography will tell you he
has shared the stage with the likes of
Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Dan Bern,
Michelle Shocked, Leftover Salmon, Mickey
Hart, J.J. Cale, Robert Hunter, Chuck
Brodsky, Artis the Spoonman and John
Hammond.
Jim Page will play the 25th annual
Winterfolk, a benefit concert for Sisters of
the Road at the Aladdin Theater on
Saturday, Feb. 2. He plays again on
Thursday, Feb. 7, with Bill Oskay at the
Edgefield in Troutdale.
H
S.Z.: Busking, or street singing, is alive
and well in the urban areas o f our country.
You have played a big part in that. In 1974
you were integral in changing street singing
laws in Seattle. Tell me about that.
J.P.: It was illegal to perform with a
receptacle for receiving donations without a
permit in Seattle. And there were no
permits. I spent the summer dealing with
city council people and the mayor’s office
and so on. I got a lot of help from the media.
We had a city council meeting. I made
posters. We packed the place. It was easy.
Everybody came out in favor of it except the
Musician’s Union. It is now part of the
municipal code. I don’t know, but I have a
hunch that if I hadn’t done that back in ‘74 it
would be really hard to do now.
S.Z.: Tell me about your friendship with
Artis the Spoonman.
S u e Zalokar: Your bio doesn’t address the
hows and whys o f the start o f your interest in
music and songwriting. What came first?
J.P.: I first met him in 1971 when I first
got here. He picked me up hitchhiking
somewhere. The way he tells it, the first
time he was ever on stage playing with
anybody was with me. I played at a little
tavern called the Medicine Show and there
he was and he asked if he could play with
me. I just kind of looked at him and I made
a snap judgement because he looked like he
would be really interesting to play with. I
didn’t know what that meant, but it would
not be boring and it would not be laid back.
It would be really interesting. And it was.
Jim Page: Those things are hard to
explain sometimes, I was, I suppose a
typically dysfunctional teenager all full of
angst and self worth issues like most 14 year
olds. One day I heard Lightnin’ Hopkins for
the first time and there was something
about the way he sang. He was able to come
out of himself and into the listener. It
carried me away so that I was completely
excited and consumed by the idea of
learning to play the guitar and sing songs.
To me, it was a life jacket. It was a way of
completely swimming out of the drowning
waters of rootlessness that a lot of
teenagers have.
S.Z.: This month is the 150 year
anniversary o f Lincoln’s signing the
Emancipation Proclamation. Today was also
the inauguration o f President Obama. What
do you think we Americans, and the world at
large can expect from the President in his
second term?
J.P.: I would like to think that he would
be more adventurous since he doesn’t have
to worry about reelection. There were some
things he stumbled on. Maybe the
Republican-packed Congress was just such a
stonewall that he couldn’t do anything. I
don’t expect a lot out of Presidents because
they are basically just a hood ornament on
the machinery of the state. They don’t have
that much power. Most of the left-wing
people got all excited when he got elected,
and then they kind of changed their minds.
They spend their time dissecting American
politics and talking about how the President
is just a puppet in the face of the real power.
And then when Obama gets elected, they
expect something else.
As a political populace, we’ve been
neutered. It happened slowly and we have
actually gotten to enjoy it. We enjoy our
powerlessness. We go to movies and we
know all about the batting averages and the
football scores, but we don’t know a damn
thing about politics, or care for the most
part. It’s very frustrating.
S.Z.: There is a quote by David Ackert that
m aking its way around social media sites. He
says, “Singers and musicians are some o f the
most driven, courageous people on the face of
S.Z.: You have said, “Every song has an
ending. ” As a metaphor fo r the hum an race,
how do you think our song ends?
C O U R T E S Y J IM P A G E
B eing a itto s ie ia it Is a jo b , I l rs a trade, I t is also an a rt,
b lit II yon b lo w th a t w ay out of proportion^ y o i/H get
lousy tra d e sm a n sliip , Yon have to show np and fenow yo n r
m aterial» Yon have to have social s h ills to deal w ith y o n r
em ployer and to ta lk w ith the people In the audience» Il's
a trade, Yon have to get good at It, then yon have to go do
It»
the earth. They deal with more day-to-day
rejection in one year than most people do in a
lifetime. ” He goes on to talk about the risks
that musicians take. His conclusion is that at
the end o f the day, “to dedicate oneself to that
moment (when an artist pours out their
creative spirit and touches another’s heart) is
worth a thousand lifetimes. Do you agree?
J.P.: No. I think that’s way overblown. If
all the musicians went on strike, nobody
would notice. When the garbage collectors
go on strike, everybody notices. Being a
musician is nowhere near as important as
being a nurse. I’ve been a guitar player
since 1965. The rejection I deal with is
nowhere near the rejection that a
salesperson or a fundraiser deals with.
Doing cold calls or raising money for
anything, that is rejection.
Being a musician is a job. It’s a trade. It is
also an art, but if you blow that way out of
proportion, you’ll get lousy tradesmanship.
You have to show up and know your
material. You have to have social skills to
deal with your employer and to talk with the
people in the audience. It’s a trade. You
have to get good at it, then you have to go
do it.
Artist’s have an obligation. If we are going
to be supported by the people that we
perform for, then we have an obligation to
support them in return. To give them songs,
stories, plays, movies that reflect their lives
and enrich their experience and give them
feelings of hope and self worth as they
experience the art that we’ve made.
S.Z.: How many songs do you think you
have written?
J.P.: I actually don’t know. I stopped even
caring years ago. Way back in ‘71 or
something, I counted them up and there
were like 250. A lot of the songs you write
only last a couple of days.
S.Z.: What do you mean by that?
J.P.: Because they are about something
that is very immediate, right now and is not
going on anymore and so the song doesn’t
J.P.: Population is a really big issue. The
mythological handicap says that certain core
important things never change. And we all
know that there is nothing that never
changes. We need to be able to implement
family planning. We need to empower
women to not have children if they don’t
want to. And when religion comes out, as a
mythological ball and chain and says that is
against God’s plan, that is very dangerous.
Obama mentioned nonbelievers in his
first inaugural speech. He mentioned them
again just a couple of days ago. This has
never happened before, nonbelievers are the
largest growing sector of the so called
religious paradigm. People who either don’t
believe at all in God or are not aligned or
say, “I don’t know, it sounds kinda fishy to
me.” That is very important. It takes the
power away from clergy. It takes the power
away from fear. It takes the power away
from the things that keep us from moving
forward.
The Martin Luther Kings of this world
are everywhere. He was a great speaker and
he knew how to make people think and how
to get them riled up and get them excited
about themselves. And he used the Bible
and religious stories to charge people up
and to give them the courage to do things
and that’s the right thing to do.
We can be equally powerful, equally
charged, equally positive, equally
constructive - without depending on magic.
We have a right - by virtue of the fact
that we are alive on this planet - we have
the right to a better life.