Singer, songwriter, poet, author, and producer Keith James has been a presence on the U.K. folk scene since the '70s, and has won an audience both for his own music and his interpretations of other celebrated artists. James was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England and grew up in Surrey and Berkshire where, during the late '70s, he began making a name for himself as a folk musician, playing regular acoustic gigs on the then-flourishing wine bar circuit. In 1981, James self-released his first recording, a four-song vinyl EP titled The Bar-Room Balladeer. An album simply called Songs appeared later the same year, and three more EPs and a second LP, The Swallows, appeared by the end of 1983. As James continued to tour, he developed a growing following and recorded several sessions for BBC Radio. After a sojourn in South America near the end of the '80s, he settled in Berkshire and focused his attentions on engineering and production, setting up his own recording studio and working with a variety of folk, blues, and jazz artists. In time, James made his way back to performing, and recorded several more albums of his own material like 1993's Tomorrow Is Longer Than Yesterday, and in the 2000s, he became increasingly prolific, releasing Outsides (2002), Postcards (2005), and No.1 Paradise Road (2006). In 2001, James put together a show in which he performed a set of songs by one of his favorite songwriters, Nick Drake, and the show became a success on the U.K. folk circuit, with James regularly reviving the presentation over the next 15 years. In 2003, James bowed to popular demand and recorded an album of Drake favorites, The Songs of Nick Drake, and in 2008, he issued a live album documenting a performance of Drake's repertoire with bassist Rick Foot. James also toured with concerts in which he performed musical interpretations of the poems of Federico Garcia Lorca and selections from the catalog of Leonard Cohen, both of which were committed to compact disc. In 2014, he recorded an album in which he set the poetry of Dylan Thomas to music, Time Let Me Play, and in 2015 he delivered Always, a set of new songs that he had been honing to his exacting standards for ten years. James is also a published poet and is writing a book on the struggle of the creative spirit. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi