CROSSOVER ARTIST SPOTLIGHT:
Jimmy White
The man behind those # 1 crossover hits says: “Never Stop!”
Q: “Forever & A Day” is your latest hit single. Is there a backstory to this song?
JIMMY: “Forever” just came to me one day when I was out at lunch with my wife. I don’t know where or how, but the next thing you know I’m rushing home before I forget it. I did a simple piano/voice demo, sent it to my new producer, Gary Mallaber (Steve Miller Band, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, you get the picture) and 2 weeks later we’re cutting it, Gary style. The results, I think, speak for themselves. We’re all pretty happy with it!
Q: The “Forever & A Day” video was shot in Los Angeles area. Tell us about this special video.
JIMMY: My step son, Joel Pfeiffer, is a video director in Ventura, CA. I tried him out with my last video, “Katy Did”, and the results were so spectacular that of course I wanted to do “Forever” with him as well. The results, judging by popular response, are even better than they were for “Katy”, which is really saying something. And I got to work again with my friends Annie Hirschmann (“Katy” in “Katy Did”) and Schneor Wolf (The young “me” in “Katy”). You KNOW you’re getting old when they start hiring actors to play “the young Jimmy”.
Q: Your songs have been going up both the Mainstream & Country charts this year. Are you surprised at the crossover appeal you have with the Country audience? Why do you think that is happening?
JIMMY: I’m not really surprised, although I am truly gratified by it. I’m not surprised because I’m primarily a songwriter, in the old fashioned sense of the word, and Country fans love great songs. I LOVE great songs too, and that’s what I try to write, always. So Country fans and I are kindred spirits and Country is the HOME of great songwriting today and I am honored to be a guest in that home.
Q: This story is for the Summer July issue, so any special family vacation plans for the White Family this summer?
JIMMY: I live in a beach community that is an extremely popular tourist spot, so I already AM on vacation when I get up in the morning. I would like to get to Maine, though, sometime this summer. I love it there. And I’ll be back in Ventura, CA, not a shabby place, in August to do a video and PSA for “Good Friends Are Hard To Find,” my song that got placed on the “Bands For Bella” fundraising CD by the Bella Moss Foundation in England, which studies the rapidly growing problem of MRSA infections in animals. I am very proud of this and am looking forward to the video very much.
Q: Please give a little advice to the artists who is just starting out in this crazy business we all love.
JIMMY: Wow. Advice. NEVER stop. Be true to YOUR vision (not anyone else’s). But listen when those you trust tell you you have a problem, because you probably do. Do this music thing because you LOVE it, not for money or fame or some other worthless thing. Vincent Van Gogh did not sell one painting to anyone (except his brother, which doesn’t count) in his lifetime. You may have heard of him. Vincent, I mean. Other painters in his time probably sold more than he did, but you’ve never heard of them. One more thing. NEVER stop. Oh, and one more thing. NEVER stop.
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