Jj Thames

JJ Thames blends R&B, funk, Motown, and soul with robust blues and gospel vocals while adding ska and reggae rhythms at intervals. Her commanding stage presence is supported by ample skill as both songwriter and performer. Her path resembles a standard Hollywood biopic, complete with youthful happiness, devastating losses, and an apparently inevitable shift toward music as a vocation.

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, Thames—whose surname is pronounced “Timms”—displayed musical talent in early childhood. Supported by her blue-collar parents, she developed through singing while studying piano along with classical and jazz vocal methods. She made her first stage appearances at age nine. By seventeen she had become a blues shouter and prodigy who could dominate and ignite any venue in authentic chanteuse style.

At that age she gave birth to the first of her three sons and relocated with him to Mississippi to pursue business and marketing studies at Mississippi College. Settling in Jackson, she performed on the regional club circuit with artists such as Marvin Sease, maintaining her position and acquiring the ability to build and enlarge an audience. In 2004 she gave birth to her second son, who died from a rare strain of lymphoma just days before his second birthday. The loss redirected her northward, and she returned to Detroit.

Singing alone eased her despair, so she committed to realizing her goal of becoming a professional performer and musician. She obtained a headlining engagement at Lola’s, a neighborhood nightclub, and appeared there every Friday night for a year and a half, sharpening her stagecraft while expanding her following. Heartened, she moved to New York City in 2008, aiming to duplicate her local success.

New York reduced her circumstances to singing in the subway for coins and gratuities. That setting nevertheless taught her how to hold listeners with voice alone and the worth of musical variety; she reworked various alternative rock songs into her own material, widening her live options. The 2010 birth of her third son left her responsible for two young children, forcing music to recede once more. She worked for a period as an assistant manager at a restaurant and balanced several jobs while gradually restoring performances to her calendar.

In 2012, unable to meet weekly rent at an extended-stay hotel, Thames and her two sons spent a month in a homeless shelter. There she wrote what would become her early signature song, “Tell You What I Know.” Although her situation had reached its lowest point, she had already shared stages with Bobby “Blue” Bland, Peggy Scott Adams, Willie Clayton, Denise LaSalle, and others, and had supplied background vocals for ska, reggae, and reggae rock bands including Outlaw Nation, Fishbone, Israel Vibrations, and Bad Brains, thereby developing a fully formed, diverse, and commanding stage presence.

Relatives and friends intervened, enabling another relocation to Mississippi, where her fortunes turned. She signed with Dechamp Records in 2013 and recorded her debut album with producers Grady Champion and Carole DeAngelis. The finished Tell You What I Know album appeared to early critical praise in spring 2014.