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THE EARLY YEARS |
Jim Brickman was born November 20, 1961 in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in the Shaker Lakes area of the city. His mom, Sally, said she never imagined he would end up the solo piano sensation that he has. However, in an interview published in his fan club newsletter, BrickNotes, she noted that his flair for performance began at a very early age. |
Here are some of the notes she made in his baby book:
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His first keyboard wasn't very impressive at all: a long piece of green felt with notes drawn in with a magic marker. By age 10, it was time for his first real piano a beat up Yamaha upright. More than 25 years later, it's still his primary piano. "It's like Linus-has-a-security-blanket kind of a thing," he said on the syndicated radio program Personal Notes. "It never even occurred me that I should buy a piano. ... It's been my piano forever. It's where I wrote all the stuff I like." |
Besides that personal attachment, Jim also says he just wouldn't feel comfortable composing music on a grand piano, saying in a strange way it would almost be intimidating. "It would almost be like the piano was calling out to me, saying, 'Be brilliant on me because I'm this beautiful instrument, so you better be good when you sit down and play me.' " While Jim has said he never thought he would grow up to be a performer, he and childhood friend Anne Cochran were in a band together while they attended a Cleveland high school. He also carried his love of music with him into his college years: he studied composition and performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music at the same time he was taking business classes at Case Western Reserve University. |
SUCCESS HAS 'LIMITS' |
Jim's first career and his first taste of success began while he was still living in his college dorm room.
In addition to his work for Henson, Jim was already writing commercial jingles while still in college. Eventually, he combined his love for music with his business training and opened Brickman Arrangement, his commercial jingle company. |
Despite finding wild success as a commercial jingle writer, Jim wasn't completely happy. In a biography posted on the Windham Hill web site, Jim said he found writing jingles too "limiting." "Eventually, I got bored doing jingles, and it became creatively limiting because I had to fake being trendy much of the time. I realized I never sat down and played the piano, except for work. I wanted to make music that was more personal, more real and from the heart." |
THE NEW ROMANTIC, SOLO PIANO SENSATION |
That's when Jim put his business training and determination to work for himself a second time. He moved to Los Angeles in 1989, figuring the city would give him more options as far as what he could do. And he figured if he wrote and performed "pretty" music, someone was bound to like and buy it. He wrote six songs, booked some studio time and cut a demonstration album, then traveled across the country, meeting radio station program directors, doing market research.
After the "No Words" album was recorded, he filled his car trunk with CDs, then went on the radio station road tour once again this time to actually get the music played on the radio. "I did it by myself at the very beginning, meeting radio station DJs just like Elvis did," he told the Berkshire, Mass., Eagle. "That's the way it used to be, and it kind of surprises me that it's not the typical way anymore, because you still have a product that you're trying to get people to hear." |
"No Words" produced one Adult Contemporary hit song: "Rocket To The Moon". While the song never placed on Billboard magazine's charts, it was played on several radio station across the country, and appeared on adult contemporary charts in publications more intently focused on a radio programming audience. In some ways, Jim says "No Words" remains one of his favorite albums. When he was writing the music for it, he had no idea it would eventually be released to the public. He says because of that, the album best expresses some of his deepest emotions. |
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Jim's following albums each did better on the Billboard magazine charts:
All three albums have since sold more than 500,000 copies and have been certified gold. |
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Jim has thought about the appeal of his music and thinks it touches people for several reasons, the main being emotion. Not only is the music itself emotional, but with piano solos, there's nothing else to get in the way: "I play acoustic piano. I don't play all that other stuff. I'm a true, acoustic, organic player. I feel that my talent is a very natural ability and that I should play an instrument that's made of wood and strings." Jim says some of the appeal may also come from his jingle background, writing songs people think they know even though they've never heard them before. |
But while the songs and instrument may be familiar, Jim's not one for doing the expected.
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