Jim Cohen
Jim Cohen has become known in the steel community and beyond for his superb technique and style, and his exploration of material beyond the traditional steel guitar catalog.
Jim was born in New York City and raised on Long Island. He started playing acoustic guitar at age 12, inspired by the British Invasion. By high school, his tastes ran to country/rock music such as Buffalo Springfield, Poco, New Riders of the Purple Sage, etc. Through this music, Jim fell in love with the sound of the pedal steel guitar. His first influence on the instrument was the steeler for Poco, Rusty Young.
In 1970, he moved to St. Louis, MO to attend college at Washington University, and somehow stumbled into DeWitt "Scotty" Scott, who ran (and still runs) a tiny, but influential steel guitar studio on the outskirts of town. Scotty became Jim's first steel guitar teacher and sold him his first steel guitar. While in college, Jim earned some pocket money by playing steel for a country-rock band called "Whitehorse". Among other places, they used to play regularly at Chuck Berry's private club on his home grounds in Wentzville, MO.
Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Jim worked in a variety of jazz, country and swing bands in Missouri, Florida and Pennsylvania. During that time, he was able to study with many of the world's finest steel players, including Buddy Emmons, Jeff Newman, Paul Franklin, Maurice Anderson, Bobby Black, Winnie Winston, and others.
In 1994, influenced by hearing a Junior Brown concert while on a visit to Austin, Jim decided to form his own western swing band, Beats Walkin'. That group still performs widely around the Philadelphia, PA area. Their debut album, Western Omelette was released in 1997. In 2002, they released their second CD, a live recording entitled Bop-a-billy Swing!, to critical acclaim.
In recent years, Jim has been much in demand for recording sessions around the Philadelphia area, and as a solo performer at numerous steel guitar shows around the country and in Europe.
Jim - in tandem with producer, arranger and keyboardist Dan Kleiman - has released three solo recordings of jazz, pop, and rock instrumentals. His fourth, released in March '08, is his first country CD, appropriately titled Cohen Goin' Country.
Jim is also the creator and manager of a website dedicated to jazz on steel guitar - www.SteelGuitarJazz.com.
More information, photos, sound samples and merchandise are available at www.jimcohen.com.
