Multi-instrumentalist who was born in L.A. and grew up
during the early stages of rock and roll, practicing his saxophone to Plas
Johnson records and performing at his junior high school's
dances.After school, he would
immerse himself in the L.A. club scene.It was there he met and befriended
fellow sax man Steve Douglas, who introduced him to Duane Eddy.Eddy was so impressed with Jim, he
asked him to be a member of his touring band, The Rebels.He wasn't just touring for
long.Jim was studio-ready.It is his tenor saxophone you hear
on "Peter Gunn" and other recordings between 1958 and
1959.Duane Eddy was so well-respected,
Chet Atkins asked him to perform at the Grand Ole Opry one time, but Duane
politely declined, because the Opry didn't allow saxophones on
stage.They said the saxophone
was "the instrument of the devil".Duane would not go on stage without
his sax player, which should tell you something about Duane Eddy, and how
much respect he had for Jim Horn.He couldn't bear the idea of a steel guitar player taking Jim's
sax solo.It didn't take
long for Jim's playing to attract the eyes and ears of the L.A. music
cogniscenti.In the 1960s, he
landed a gig on Shindig!, which
was a big deal at the time, and also found himself laying down tracks on
Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" recordings such as "River
Deep, Mountain High" with Tina Turner and "You've Lost
That Lovin' Feelin'" by The Righteous Brothers.If you were on that mega-hit, the studio
doors swung open for you.Eddy
helped open some of those doors for Jim, and before long he was in demand
as a session player.Here he
got to show off his versatility as a wind musician.If you own any Carpenters records--that's
right, any Carpenters records--you have heard Jim play the
English horn and oboe.If you
were old enough to see Joe Cocker on his Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, you
got to see and hear Jim, as well.The same goes for George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh and
Dark Horse tour.Again, Jim was
too valuable to keep on the road for too long, when the studio was
beckoning him.A longtime
collaboration with John Denver enriched the musical landscape with
bird-like, imitative woodwind playing, perfect for the airy and evocative
country-folk-pop sound Denver was fashioning at the time.His friendship with Denver allowed
him to fly a bi-plane at a thousand feet, walk on The Great Wall of China,
and visit the Pyramids of Egypt.John, he said, empowered him to express himself musically moreso than
any other artist.That is lofty
praise coming from someone who collaborated with all four of the Beatles on
their solo albums, and is reputed to be the most recorded saxophonist in
history.In the 1980s, the
times, they were a-changin'.A migration of musicians from L.A. to Nashville swept along Jim Horn
and his newlywed wife, Denise.It is Jim you hear on Ronnie Milsap's mega-smash, "Lost
in the Fifties (In the Still of the Night)".As if to prove his chops were as
versatile as ever, he also recorded with U2, and can be seen and heard on
the documentary, Rattle and Hum.Nashville turned out to be a good
move for him, however.If Garth
Brooks asks you to play on one of his albums, it's a pretty big
deal.The same goes for Vince
Gill and Wynonna Judd.When
Garth Brooks performed with Billy Joel in Central Park, it was Jim who
played the saxophone solo in "New York State of Mind".Session musicians are the unsung
heroes of the music business, so we can forgive Horn for tooting his
own:He has released an album
called The Hit List, which
features songs which featured him, ones you might not have even known he
played on, like "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys, "Little
Jeannie" by Elton John, and "Ride Like the Wind" by
Christopher Cross.He pays homage
to others moreso than to himself, however, on A Beatles Tribute and Jim
Horn:A Tribute to John Denver.Another example of his versatility
is Northern Reflections, a staple
on smooth jazz radio stations.If
Jim has only released ten solo albums, including Neon Nights and Work It
Out, one could argue he simply hasn't had time to do more.In his long and distinguished
career, he has appeared on a wide variety of records that nearly everybody
knows, like "The Age of Aquarius" and "Up, Up and Away"
with The Fifth Dimension, "Goin' up the Country" with
Canned Heat, "Lady Blue" with Leon Russell, "Laughter in
the Rain" with Neil Sedaka, "Rosanna" with Toto, "Strangers
in the Night" with Frank Sinatra, and "Tears of a Clown"
with Smokey Robinson.He has also appeared as a member of the CBS Orchestra with
Paul Shaffer on The Late Show with David Letterman and
twice as a guest musician with Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer
Band on the albums Beach House on the Moon and Far Side
of the World.On 29th November 2002, he
joined an all-star line-up at Albert Hall in London to pay tribute to an
old friend in the famous Concert for George.Two years later, he was asked to
arrange the horns at the Democatic National Convention.He has spent the balance of the
decade touring with Lynyrd Skynyrd, on whose early recordings he appears,
and helped Sting organize the Rainforest Concerts at Carnegie Hall.
