Jimmy Jam

Lore & Background

Jimmy Jam is the son of Cornbread Harris, a Minneapolis blues and jazz musician. Jimmy Jam met Lewis while attending an Upward Bound program on the University of Minnesota campus. In the mid-1970s, Harris formed or joined Mind & Matter, an 11 piece band. Lewis had been in the band Flyte Tyme, which Harris joined late in its history and which Prince restructured as the Time in 1981.

As members of the Time, they played instruments on all but one of the group's five albums (Ice Cream Castle being the one exception), including Condensate which the group recorded as the Original 7ven. In 1982, Jam and Lewis were introduced to music executive Dina R. Andrews, who was then an employee of Dick Griffey's SOLAR Records, where they would be mentored by record producer Leon Sylvers III. The pair asked Andrews to manage them, and through her relationships, Andrews first introduced the duo to Clarence Avant.

They produced their first work for Avant for the S.O.S. Band. Andrews set up Jam and Lewis's company Flyte Tyme Productions and shopped them to her music industry colleagues. Jam and Lewis went on to produce several other acts for Avant under Dina Andrews Management for the S.O.S. Band, Cherrelle, Alexander O'Neal and Change. Additionally, Andrews shopped the duo to many of the executives and artists who used her services, such as Klymaxx, Cheryl Lynn ("Encore"), and executives such as A&M's John McClain (Janet Jackson).

The pair were fired by Prince after a freak Atlanta blizzard left them unable to make a tour date during which they were, unbeknown to Prince, producing music for the S.O.S. Band. However, one of the Atlanta tracks, "Just Be Good to Me", became a hit and established the duo's reputation. Jam and Lewis would rejoin the Time for two albums: 1990's Pandemonium and the 2011 album Condensate when the band went by the Original 7ven. The duo was noted for early use of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, which was used in most of its productions.

After working with other artists such as Thelma Houston, Cherrelle and Alexander O'Neal, Jam and Lewis were introduced to Janet Jackson and produced her breakthrough album Control in 1986, for which the duo won a Grammy Award. Their collaboration on her next album, 1989's Rhythm Nation 1814, proved even more successful as the album became one of the top-selling albums in history with four Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits.

Reader's Guide

Jam and Lewis did not play on the Time's 1981 debut album 'The Time'; they joined the group after its formation and first album, and their first album with the Time was 1982's 'What Time Is It?'

Did You Know?

• They have produced 16 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits and 26 Billboard R&B No. 1 hits.
• They are among a handful of producers to have No. 1 records in three consecutive decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s).