Jimmy Stevens (musician)

Biography

Jimmy Stevens came into the world in Liverpool, the son of Tom and Mary Stevens, and grew up alongside a brother named Tommy and a sister also called Mary. The family made their homes in the Garston and Speke areas. His father gave him an old piano that had once belonged to a pub, but, in a move common among his peers, he turned away from his classical lessons. His schooling took him to St. Francis Assisi School and then John Almond Secondary Modern School, followed by a two-year stint as a boarder at Blackrock College, a 56-acre institution run by the Holy Ghost Fathers with views over Dublin Bay.

It was there, in a dormitory with a black wind-up gramophone, that he discovered Buddy Holly, who instantly became his idol. At fifteen, Stevens returned to Liverpool and took various jobs, including one for a tailor where his task was to take in the legs of ordinary trousers to create the fashionable drainpipe look. With that same wind-up gramophone and a stash of 78 rpm records, he grew to love the sounds of Fats Domino and Ray Charles. In 1963, the Liverpool band The Young Ones released his song "Baby That's You" on Decca Records.

Career

To make ends meet while pursuing music, he took work as a bookie's runner, a maker of leather watch straps, and a coal miner. He even turned down an offer from Brian Epstein, the man who managed The Beatles. Stevens fronted the Merseybeat band the Beathovens, a regular act at Liverpool's Cavern Club. The Daily Mirror, according to one report, once called him "a fat John Lennon [who] writes like a broken-down poet and sings like he chews gravel for breakfast."

In 1966, he put out a solo single, "I Love You," with "Wharf 130" on the B-side, both tracks his own work. Around 1971, two representatives of Robert Stigwood heard him at Cam Studios in Moorfield, leading to a contract and a tour with ELP. Stevens had mixed feelings about that experience, recalling that audiences would chant "ELP" while he was trying to perform.

That October, he recorded two of his own songs, "Tears (Behind My Eyes" and "The Band," with Maurice Gibb and Billy Lawrie producing. The following year, Atlantic Records released his album "Don't Freak Me Out," also produced by Maurice Gibb. In 1973, a US version of that album came out under the title "Paid My Dues."