 A leading figure on the Scottish, UK and international music scene, Jim Sutherland is a producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and composer, whose twenty year plus career has ranged across the fields of rock, pop, folk, dance, ambient, electronica, rap, world and chamber music, as well as a string of major commissions for film, TV and theatre.
Born in Thurso, on the far north coast of Scotland, and now based in Edinburgh, where he works from his own custom-designed Kinky Studio, housed within a left-field artists' complex, Jim juggles an ongoing, ever-evolving array of diverse projects. In 2004 alone, he produced the debut album by hotly-tipped roots/pop combo Aberfeldy, Young Forever, out on Rough Trade, directed a pioneering Scottish/Hungarian live collaboration featuring the renowned Marta Sebestyen and her group Muszikas, and premiered a brand-new multi-media song suite, Cold Weather Dancing, featuring a nine-piece band and live video mixing, commissioned by Glasgow's world-renowned Celtic Connections festival. The last piece was hailed by the Sunday Herald as "both a visual and an aural feast. . . one of the most thrillingly cutting-edge performances Celtic Connections has ever seen".
Jim is a world-class player of percussion and particularly the bodhran, a simple Celtic frame drum. He also plays mandolin and cittern to a very high standard. It was with this combination that Jim made first made his mark with Scottish band The Easy Club.
The bands 'Scottish Rhythm n' Swing' style of playing traditional music was not especially modern - it was actually quite a retro sound, drawing on many recent musical traditions, American as well as Scottish, and forcing them together into a startling type of fusion - which did sound new.
Their uniquely swingy take on Scottish music came about in a sudden, and slightly spooky, fashion. One afternoon, Jim began playing a reel in A on the cittern, pushing the offbeat hard as he always did. Rod, who had learned some jazzy guitar moves from playing with the late Jimmy Elliot (a great old jazz player and frequenter of Sandy Bell's), began backing up the tune with some swingy barre chords in that Jimmy Elliot/Peerie Willie kind of style. The combination of swung rhythm guitar with Jim's powerful offbeat emphasis caused the tune to burst into life like a Roman candle. Norman and Jack joined in with a similar feel, and the music was suddenly rocking like they'd never heard it before.
The band went on to create 3 amazing albums - The Easy Club, Chance or Design and Skirlie Beat. A few years back a greatest hits was released on Greentrax.
Jim has also written numerous classic folk tunes, which on the last count had been covered on over a hundred albums which feature in his great tune book The Flow Country.
You will also find Jim on an eclectic mix of other people's shows and albums. Jools Holland's 'Later' and MTV Unplugged and the multi- platinum album No Quarter with Page and Plant, to Edinburgh Castle with Van Morrison and The Chieftains to Emmlou Harris, The McGarrigles, John Martyn & Cathy Matea on the Transatlantic Sessions. Percussion on Billy Bragg album The Internationale. Album tracks and live TV with The Buhdhu Boys. He has been invited to collaborate with Aboriginal musicians in Australia to create a performance piece called Celtic Dreaming, which was broadcast nationally on ABC TV in Australia. Various 'house bands' on several leading TV music and arts series including Shetland Sessions, Togaidh SinnFonn, TACSI, Talla A Bhaile. Jim also had a number of high profile pupils including in 1994 Evelyn Glennie for bodhran lessons and advised U2 on how to play the locust bean pods!
These words have been taken from an article by Sue Wilson (on Jim's web page) and Jack Evan's Living Tradition Article.
Check out Jim's webpage http://www.jimsutherland.uk.com/
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