Getting to Know. . . JAMES LEE STANLEY
 by Kathy S-B  ·  21 September 2007

James Lee Stanley is the epitome of the American traveling troubadour. He has twenty recordings to his name and has played all over this country — to audiences large and small. How can you not love a man who features a quote from novelist Tom Robbins? “So where have they been hiding James Lee Stanley? We could say that James Lee Stanley is probably the last great undiscovered singer-songwriter in America. But true as that may be let’s say something else, let’s say that a diamond has been smuggled into the wasteland and here is where the wasteland ends.”

Get a glimpse of James Lee in concert by checking out the videos on his MySpace page. His extraordinary blog is definitely worth a prolonged visit too.

I’m always interested in hearing about people’s pivotal moments in life — those moments that seem to be major indicators early on or even later in life that seem to pave the way toward the future. So can you remember what it was about music that made you push forward to a full-time musical career?

I come from a musical family. My mother was a wonderful singer and my father still writes poetry. My grandfather had a band and was so musical he could play anything. piano like Chico Marx with all the little comedic flourishes, trombone, guitar (he taught me), banjo and he was very funny on stage, so i guess I get all that comedy from there, but here’s the thing. . . there was no pivotal thing for me with regard to doing this. I was always going to do this. The only thing close to pivotal for me was after I had been here doing this for about five albums and I was truly daunted by the incredible number of truly talented people I was encountering. It seemed like they were all better than me, so my self image was a little diminished, but not enough to get me to quit. Now here’s the pivotal part: I did a “best of album” called Eclipse in 1982. I went thru my albums of the early seventies and took the best twelve songs. When I put them together, I noticed that I had a truly unique compositional signature as a composer, guitarist and vocalist.

It was the first time that I truly recognized and accepted that I was an artist. . . not a wanna be, but a true artist with my own unique vision. It nearly made me explode with possibility.

JAMES — What’s really strange is I just read the lyrics to your song “Here We Are” and your explanation about pivotal moments and I wrote this question 30 minutes ago. . . SPOOKY!

There was another moment of epiphany if that’s what you are looking for. one of my favorite albums of all times is Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. I’ve worn out LPs and owned the first CD version of it, the half speed master version of it, the gold CD version of it. and if they come out with something better then I’ll get that.

To me it was the best musicians in the world just playing off the top of their heads and doing it better than I ever could. I literally thought that I could never be that good. Then I read a book called The Making of Kind of Blue and discovered that, yes indeed, they really did play that great, but. . . and here’s the part that gave me hope. They recorded six to eight hours a day for four days straight and Teo Macero went thru the tapes and extracted these forty minutes of transcendence. I realized that if I play long enough and it might be weeks longer than it took them, but the point is if I played long enough I could come up with some pretty great stuff too. and also it made me realize that nobody great does it alone. A big one for me.

You’ve been a traveling musician for most of your life. Can you imagine doing anything else? If so, what?

I enjoy art very much, painting, drawing, sketching. . . I could do that. I also love to write. This blog that I’m doing right now, www.datamusicata.com, is giving me enormous satisfaction.

Your CD All Wood and Stones, an acoustic tribute to the music of the Rolling Stones has received rave reviews. Tell us about this musical collaboration with John Batdorf. And. . . were you always a Stones kind of guy?

Not at all. I’ve always been a beatles guy. That’s why all those Stones tunes sound so much like the Beatles. Both John and I were Beatle freaks and we applied Beatles sensibilities to the tunes, filtered thru our reverence for Buffalo Springfield, Crosby Stills and Nash and acoustic rock. We both loved those albums by those guys and we wanted to do that.

I got the idea from singing at a friends wedding when the band took a break, they asked me to go up there. It was me, Rod MacDonald, and another fellow. When we got there, we realized that we didn’t know anything except our own songs. Then Rod asked me if I knew “Ruby Tuesday?” I said I know the chorus and away we went We did the chorus with three part harmony and those acoustic guitars and I came home that night and thought, I’m gonna do an album of acoustic Rolling Stones songs. Nobody has done it and I think I could do it great. Then I hooked up with John and he kicked it into a whole other level. He’s such an acoustic rock maven, while I am more of the jazz sensibilities. Our vocals meshed and the recording continues to be played and to sell.

Your song “On the Street Where Mercy Died” from your CD The Eternal Contradiction touched me very deeply. I’d like to thank you for voicing your strong opinions about the situation in such an eloquent and gracefully brilliant manner.

I was so enraged by the local, state and federal response to that tragedy I couldn’t contain myself. And ultimately it was the President’s fault. The buck stops there. He’s the leader and he did not do any leading except to another Republican fund raiser in San Diego. And dismantling FEMA and putting his own inept buddies in positions there was unforgivable. Think about FEMA during the huge hurricane in Florida during the Clinton administration. If we want to know what incompetence is, we need look no further that whomever Bush appoints. He has a gift for incompetency. He shames the office of the presidency and the country. but let me back off before my true feelings come out. Diplomacy above all. . .

Your website is a real treasure trove of information. I love the fact that you took the time to give explanations about all the songs on your CD. Having that little glimpse into your mind and your creative spirit is inspiring. And your journal is such an amazing resource for musicians and wanna-be musicians. Have you been getting good feedback?

I wanted to put up everything that I thought would be of interest to the people who liked the CD and you get so much more room on the web than trying to put it all on a little CD jacket with print so little that no one ever reads it. so everything is there that I could think of, including all the lyrics.

The blogsite datamusicata is exploding. I was hoping that it would help folks eventually and we started it exactly ten weeks ago today (Jul 2 to Sep 16) and we just crossed 27,000 hits. I thought it would take me a year to get to that point. The progression was 2600 hits in July, 6800 hits in August and so far 16,000 hits in September and we still have two weeks to go. woo woo

Your Star Trek Deep Space Nine experiences are a hoot. Do you have any other TV or film aspirations? Once you’ve played an alien on Star Trek. . . what else is there to accomplish?

You know it’s funny, I didn’t go on Star Trek to get famous. I thought it would be grand fun and I also thought that seeing as how I was a touring performer that wasn’t famous, my life should at least be a little more interesting than my audience. I love performing live. I love singing. I like the way music feels in my throat. I like to do orchestrations of songs instead of just strumming. I like to imply the entire spectrum with just one guitar. I already said it. I love doing orchestrations on one guitar. My Freelance Human Being CD was a solo voice and guitar CD and critically it has left all the others in the dust. One of the best records of the year by FI magazine and the following year, one of the top 200 CD’s of all time in a list that included the Beatles and Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. I’m still amazed and supremely honored by that.

One last question — I can’t let you go without asking about your work with Peter Tork (Monkees). He’s one of your oldest friends and you’ve recorded and played a lot of music together. Did you ever think about trying out for the Monkees yourself? I could see you in a wool cap — the thinking person’s Monkee, so to speak.

Actually I was a Chinese linguist in the Air Force living in Taiwan during the entire Monkees run, so it never occurred to me to try and I didn’t really know much about them til I came back and hooked up with Peter again. and suddenly he was world famous. Peter and I love to play together and our latest project is a live CD full of our comedy and our music. People seem to like it a lot.

As for me, I’ve just released my first solo CD in four years, The Eternal Contradiction, and I am performing all over the country to expose folks to it. I’m glad that you like it. I am really proud of it.