K&K's Artist of the Month: Brandon St. James
July 2004
Born
in the city of Roanoke, Virginia, Brandon St. James' interest in music
started at age seven when he began learning to play the piano, with help
from his mother who specialized in church hymns, but appreciated a real
variety of music. A couple of years later, not to Brandon's liking, his
family uprooted and resettled in northeast Ohio. But consolation soon
came when the youngster finally found his first guitar was under the tree
on Christmas morning. With some help from his father, who had learned
a few chords while in military service, there was no turning back. Brandon
played both guitar and piano for programs in elementary school and throughout
his junior high years, in addition to playing trumpet in the school band.
While working full-time as a performing musician, Brandon has also been a music instructor, which he began doing since the age of 16. Starting with a few students in a music store, he was soon teaching between fifty and sixty lessons per week. For the next decade, he taught an estimated total of over 500 students, many who are professional musicians and teachers in their own right!
Beginning midway through his high school years, and continuing for the next decade, Brandon performed in many regional bands throughout northeastern Ohio. But, after all the years of playing with various bands, Brandon found his love for acoustic music overshadowing his original desire to try to be ‘the next Eric Clapton’. So, he began working as a solo act, performing with both acoustic guitar and on piano.
His calendar was soon filled with many long-running repeat engagements in many prominent northeast Ohio nightspots, including a five-year stint at Akron, Ohio’s Quaker Square Hilton. Ironically, Brandon got to meet and play for his childhood idol, Eric Clapton who was a guest at the hotel while on tour. It was also from his gig at the Hilton that Brandon found himself playing a duet of “The Boxer” with the song’s composer, Paul Simon. Other highlights included performing with the likes of Graham Nash, James Burton, The Moody Blues in his audience.
More recently, Brandon has still managed to make his living as a musician. The majority of his performance schedule has been booked for private parties, social events, community festivals and corporate functions. As a songwriter, Brandon St. James has been a Quarter Finalist in The American Song Festival, and received honorable mention in the Billboard Song Festival. Although his original songs would more likely be considered "pop" or "contemporary folk", Brandon was invited to be a guest on "Country Today". The show was broadcast into an estimated 63 million homes, via The Nashville Network (TNN).
Brandon uses the K&K FanTaStick with a preamp: "I'm extremely pleased with the quality of the sound. For me the goal has always been to still sound acoustic. Even though the volume level is boosted electronically, the electronics don't add their own sound characteristics to take away from the purity of the original sound. I used this pickup in the recording of my new CD. Even though $2,000 mics were available in the studio, the engineers and myself honestly felt that we couldn't improve on the sound achieived from going direct to the board from the pickup. If I hadn't been there and experienced it for myself, I never would have believed it. I don't know whether it's the preamp or the pickup, or both ... I just know that it sounds fantastic in recording and in live sound systems. I've received endless compliments on the quality of the sound from other guitarists in my audience."