Jim Coffman

I was born in Virginia and raised in Kentucky; and as the song says, "I've been all 'round this world". I began my musical journey as an infant, when my mom would pacify me with recordings of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak as I rocked on the living room couch. I took up trombone in the fourth grade, and played in school bands and orchestras through college. My dad, himself a trombone and banjo player, was always playing records of Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs, which got me into bluegrass. I got my first mandolin on my 15th birthday. That same year (1974) my family moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where for two years I attended high school, played trombone in a community wind ensemble and in a touring stage band, and wrote songs with JC, a duo of myself on mandolin and John Cutler on guitar. I spent senior year in Toronto, then moved to Northfield, Minnesota to attend Carleton College, where I played the Cave with JC in the band Palma, and with Good Grass and later the Rivertown Ramblers, with whom I continued gigging after graduating in 1981. In 1984 I moved to Durham NC, where I co-founded the Laughing Crinoids . I spent the 1990s in Los Angeles, performing electric country with the Livin' Free Band and cabaret with Mews and the Small Band , and the first five years of the millenium in Kansas City, where I occasionally gigged with the Pig Roast Band, Billy and the Beerbellies, and Dave and the Pickups. In 2005 I came to reside on the downeast coast of Maine. These days I mostly play with Mondo Charlie (rock) and Blue Northern (bluegrass). The recordings on this page are from my self-produced albums of original music: Overloaded Circus (volumes 1-3), Existential Opera, A Treasure-trove of Trash, and Far from Perfect Blues.