Jim was born in Topeka, Kansas. He is the baby of the family. He has two brothers and one sister. Jim's first taste of music was in church. He used to stand on the pew and sing the songs as loud as he could. It didn't matter that he didn't know all the words. His formal music training started when he started taking piano lessons at the age of nine. He took piano lessons from the age of nine until fifteen. Piano was not his instrument of passion. In the seventies the most popular instrument was the guitar. He owned a couple cheap guitars in high school but it wasn't until he got married that he bought a new pawn shop guitar and started taking lessons. Have you ever heard a beginning band student? Jim said about his guitar playing. " I was awful. All of my songs sounded the same. Strum. Strum. Strum."  Jim practiced at home and took lessons off and on for the next twenty years.
          
          He started playing acoustic guitar with  the praise team at Eastside Baptist church. This was his first band experience. Jim played in a couple different praise bands at different churches for a couple of years. He started attending Topeka Baptist church. They had an abundance of guitar players. This created a problem in that Jim had no place to play guitar.

         He contacted a local coffee shop by email and set up his first gig. The only problem was that they wanted him to do three hours of music. That was alot of time to fill for a guitar player that does not claim to be a singer. Jim found out that what Bob Dylan said was true. "I write my own songs because I can sing them." Jim's next gig was at the Classic Bean coffee shop. This was a bigger coffee shop that paid it's performers to perform. With every new concert Jim wrote new songs to play. The songs that he had written started to increase in numbers.

         He is a member of Nashville Songwriting Association International (NSAI) . He is a coordinator , along with his friend David Thompson, at the Manhattan NSAI chapter.  He has been recognized by NSAI as a Songwriter to Watch and has had a song selected as a possible pitch to publisher selection. In 2012 he placed second place in the Walnut Valley Music Festival in Winfield, Kansas. In 2013 Jim placed first place with his song called Picker's Paradise and 2nd place for his song Paradise. The prize for first prize was getting to play his song at the Walnut Valley Festival.

          He first started pitching his songs to publishers in 2013. He has signed a contract with Blue Sky Entertainment to have his song included in a movie. He is continuing to pitch his songs to publishers and artists that are looking for songs. Jim performed at the Country Stampede Songwriters Tent in Manhattan, KS in 2014, and 2015. 2016 was a good year for Jim. He was in the Country Stampede songwriting contest. He has performed in songwriter rounds at the  Commodore Grille in Nashville. He loves playing for crowds that listen to the lyrics of his songs.  He is excited to see what God has planned next for his life.