Jim Ford

Jim Ford, who grew up in New Orleans, abandoned his schooling and headed west to California during 1966. While pausing in Los Angeles on the route to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, he crossed paths with session players Pat and Lolly Vegas. The Native American musicians—who would later form the hit-making Redbone—were then employed on the Shindig television program and had already issued their Pat and Lolly Vegas at the Haunted House album through Mercury. Struck by Ford’s songwriting after hearing it directly, the Vegas brothers steered him toward Del-Fi Records chief Bob Keane, recognized throughout the L.A. circuit for his “open-door policy.” Keane placed two of Ford’s singles on the Mustang subsidiary, yet both disappeared without impact. Viola Wills, a Del-Fi/Bronco act, also cut one of his numbers. Ford joined Pat and Lolly Vegas in writing the P.J. Proby success “Niki Hoeky,” which climbed to number 23 on Billboard’s pop charts in January 1967; Ford’s onetime partner Bobbie Gentry later performed the song on one of her albums.

Ford gained the chance to cut his first LP in 1969. Harlan County, issued on the Sundown imprint—a modest White Whale offshoot—presented midtempo, funk-tinged country and R&B rockers propelled by a Muscle Shoals-style rhythm section, with the Vegas brothers and Gene Page supplying arrangements and support. Ford’s own lyrics largely traced the difficulties of his upbringing in Kentucky’s coal-mining Harlan County. Standout moments include his fuzz-laden reading of Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful,” his version of Delaney & Bonnie’s rolling “Long Road Ahead,” and a fresh take on the swamp classic “I’m Gonna Make Her Love Me (‘Til the Cows Come Home).” In 1971 Ford’s manager Si Waronker, founder of Liberty Records, arranged for the artist to travel to London and record at Olympic Studios. Pub-rock outfit Brinsley Schwartz provided initial backing (they would later cover both “Niki Hoeky” and Ford’s “Ju Ju Man”; Nick Lowe also recorded Ford’s “36 Inches High” for Jesus of Cool), yet after three days the group proved unequal to the task. Waronker next recruited Joe Cocker’s Grease Band, but that lineup likewise failed to gel. The sessions fell short of expectations and were abandoned; the tapes have since vanished.

Ford came back to the United States, where his career failed to advance as hoped. He supplied material to Bobby Womack in 1972, among them the striking “Harry Hippie,” and later collaborated with his friend Sly Stone, even residing for a time at Stone’s Holmby Hills house, yet after the early 1970s Ford faded from view. Harlan County resurfaced on the British Edsel label in 1997, but a genuine rediscovery waited another ten years. In 2007 Bear Family assembled the well-received The Sounds of Our Time collection, pairing Harlan County with previously unheard tracks and singles. The release prompted talk of Ford emerging from seclusion for a 2008 comeback, yet on November 18, 2007 he was discovered deceased in his Fort Bragg, California trailer. Bear Family’s follow-up set Point of No Return—already in preparation—gathered further rarities, singles, demos, and unreleased material and reached stores in spring 2008. The next year the label reworked the two compilations into Big Mouth USA: The Unissued Paramount Album and The Unissued Capitol Album. In 2011 Bear Family issued Demolition Expert, spotlighting previously unheard acoustic demos. Five years afterward the label again mined Ford’s archives for Allergic to Love, featuring songs he tracked during the 1980s.