I first met James in 1992 when my band Zoom was being courted by Tim Kerr Records of Portland, Oregon. Zoom had been introduced to the label through Greg Sage of Wipers fame, who was Producing what would be our final record, Helium Octipede. Coincidentally James and William Burroughs were both signed to Tim Kerr Records and we all happened to live in Lawrence, KS.

James and I met up at a Mexican restaurant near 19th & Mass St. and discussed the music biz over enchiladas. James was incredibly supportive of our move to join the label, gave me a boatload of wise advice and a long friendship ensued.

To anyone in the Art, Literary & Music world, James has long been known as ‘The Burroughs Guy’. From 1974 until William Burroughs death in 1997, James has handled the business of William S. Burroughs Communications, acting as his manager, bibliographer, editor, literary executor and companion. To this day he continues to helm the business of Burroughs.

What has been little-known up until now is that James has led a double life as an accomplished musician and songwriter with an extensive body of work stretching back from the late 1960s to the present. In fact, music was his first passion.

James set out to be a singer-songwriter before fate led to his calling with William S. Burroughs and despite the demands of his literary responsibilities, he continued to write music as a creative outlet.

Over the years James has witnessed and been an important figure in many extraordinary musical eras. He has been referred to as the ‘Zelig of Punk Rock’, having been part of a small coterie who helped kick-start the CBGBs scene in NYC from 1974 through the end of the decade. If you haven't read the book ‘Please Kill Me’ by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, do yourself a favor and pick it up. James' stories are among the best in it. His ‘mates’ during that time were the likes of Lester Bangs, Howard Brookner, Robert Palmer and Robert Quine -to name only a few.

The Zelig comparison is dead accurate, but it goes far beyond Punk Rock. James was there for the Midwestern Country-Rock explosion of the early 1970s. The legendary oral history ‘Cows Are Freaky When They Look At You’ paints a hilariously warped picture of the people in James orbit during those K.C./Lawrence years prior to him moving to NYC.

He was there for the AOR singer-songwriter movement of the late 1970s, mixing his songs with Boz Skaggs in San Francisco. He was at the Hacienda in Manchester when Factory Records ruled the scene and where New Order, The Smiths and The Fall took the world by storm. He was around when New Wave and Hardcore emerged AND he was a steadfast contributor to the evolution of underground music of the early 1990s.

In Lawrence, KS where James has lived since the early 1980s, and where Zoom and Lotuspool Records evolved, James lent his opinions, his studio, his gear, his chops and his time, unselfishly on innumerable occasions to help fledgling bands get a leg up.

Through all of these eras, James' voice as a songwriter has held its own piece of real estate. Each of the twenty-two tracks represented on this double album bear a style that is distinctly his own, both lyrically and compositionally. It is worth adding that James is one hell of an accomplished guitar player too.

Assembling this collection was no easy task, despite James' impeccable documentation of his own catalog. Tapes were baked, no stone was left unturned and several ‘new’ discoveries were made that hadn't made their way into the master list.

What you have here is a collection of songs that span thirty years, or as James so aptly puts it ‘My Life In Four Acts’ -with each side of the two lps representing an Act. Though much of the material could easily be considered Great American Songbook in style (hooks everywhere, turns of phrase that remain stuck in your head, broad themes of love, loss & loneline…), there is also a deeply personal and distinctly Queer element to the songs. One must not forget that back in the 1970s hardly anyone was doing this. In fact, James may have created his very own lane. There were Queer outsider artists like Tom Wilson doing more ‘camp’ numbers, but NO ONE was doing pop-type radio songs represented here. Some of the songs could even qualify as a new genre: Gay Yacht Rock. One must also wonder whether, despite the appeal factor, maybe James just wanted to keep the songs for himself as a log of his own personal journey?

We hope you enjoy these four acts as much as we did while assembling them. For me they just keep getting better the more I listen.

Mark Henning (Zoom, National Trust, Voice of Action)